


BBC Dracula 2020 -"Man or a Monster" - A Redemption Arc

by Sam Miller (Samstown4077)



Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula (TV 2020)
Genre: Banter, Character Development, Dracula has to make amends, F/M, Friendship, Horror, Humour, Mystery, You come for the comedy, but you'll stay for the tragedy, redemption arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22184752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samstown4077/pseuds/Sam%20Miller
Summary: Unable to die, Count Dracula has to decide how to live in this world, full of bloody seductions. Accompanied by Agatha's ghost that only exists in his head, he tries to unravel what to do to find eternal sleep. With meeting a woman, he gets unwillingly bound to; he slowly begins to understand that death can only be reached when making amends. For a creature, having lived a bloody, cruel and bland life for 500 years, this won't come without a battle. And battle often comes with casualties. An idea for a 2nd series, I got after watching the show.
Relationships: Dracula & Agatha Van Helsing, Dracula & Original Character(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	1. Intro/Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It took my brain one night of sleep to come up with an idea; I couldn't place aside anymore. What could happen in a second series? As I don't know Moffats or Gatiss phone number, I decided, to write it down myself, because honestly, my brain didn't let go of the idea. 
> 
> This story needed another character beside Agatha and Dracula, so I created an OC with the name of Charlotte or for short Charlie. The story will revolve and progress around these three characters.
> 
> There won't be explicit gore but some faster paced scenes. Also, this is talking, discussions, inner turmoil but yeah, Dracula is vampire, there will be blood. 
> 
> Will be a multi-chapter story, that is mainly planned out. My plan is to update weekly.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Has he died? Or is he still undead?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is setting the first tone.  
> 07.02.2020, additional note: I renamed this fic slightly, basing the title onto the song "Man or a Monster" by Sam Tinnesz (feat. Zayde Wolf).  
> These are the lyrics:  
> When you close your eyes, what do you see?  
> Do you hold the light or is darkness underneath?  
> In your hands, there's a touch that can heal  
> But in those same hands, is the power to kill
> 
> Are you a man or a monster?  
> Are you a man or a monster?  
> Are you a man or a monster?  
> When you look at yourself, are you a man  
> Or a monster?
> 
> It's so hard to tell which side you're on  
> One day is Hell, the next day is the dawn  
> The lines are blurred, you keep rubbing your eyes  
> The tables turn, now it's time to survive
> 
> Are you a man or a monster?  
> Are you a man or a monster?  
> Are you a man or a monster?  
> When you look at yourself, are you a man  
> Or a monster?
> 
> You can't take back the damage you've done  
> Oh, you can hide but you can't run  
> No, you can't take back the damage you've done  
> Afraid of what you might become  
> A man or a monster  
> A man or a monster
> 
> Are you a man or a monster?  
> Are you a man or a monster?  
> Are you a man or a monster?
> 
> When you look at yourself  
> Are you a man or a monster?

Intro

In the darkness lays no shadow. In the darkness lays just truth. A hidden reality, better not be found. In the dark, one has wandered way too long. So long, that stories became rumours and rumours became legends. Sayings. Jokes. Pop culture. The truth buried under centuries of history. Of turning away from the image, letting time alter it. Little changes here and there, unnoticeable, even for the clever. Like memories always end up to be better in the end; the picture in the mirror ended up to be a nightmare. How strong can a bad dream shine when there is just darkness?

The Count had feasted on the blood he had chosen to drink. The poisonous drink, deliciously prickling on his tongue, with a bitter finish, sending cold showers over the little hairs on his back. His long-term trained nature kicked in, urging him to spit out the blood, let go of van Helsing’s body. The creature inside of him was about to win when there wouldn’t have been the warm embrace of Agatha. Even if it only happened in a dream, it was strong enough to cling to his plan. The plan of dying. It had been Zoe’s van Helsing’s physical appearance, but Agatha’s mind. 

And when he had sucked every drop out of her, he felt it start. The clenching in his stomach, the twitching of his limbs, like someone holding an electric wire against him. Shivers were alternating with gasps, not for air but fresher blood — unavailable. Numbness pushed into his skull, followed by relentless fatigue, his eyelids feeling like tons of weight. He fell on his back. The wooden dining table suddenly so palpable, he was sure he was about to get absorbed by the furniture. Or maybe he was melting into it, he couldn’t tell. 

Was this how dying feels? He wondered, drifting off into the eternal sleep. A feeling of hovering and he heard himself groan, frowning about it all. Dracula sucked in a breath of air, that wouldn’t lead to anything. A sound was emerging from his throat as his victims used to give. A wheezing, a last try to hold onto life. A plea for mercy? A call for help? He had never asked, he had never wondered. 

Now, the Count found out what they used to try to say in their last moments. It wasn’t anything about pleading or a call for help; it was a revelation. Given by the view from the mountaintop he had told Johnny about. 

The mountaintop, the peak of life, the view above all the years, all those moments, the Count had lived. A damn high mountaintop. The view. Nothing he had expected. 

He gave a last sigh and then carried into the abyss that was about to lay around him like a heavy blanket.

——

Dead. Five hundred years of being a coward, letting the Count finally reach the ultimate barrier. Death. They would find his decomposed body beside the one of van Helsing. The one body he used to see in the mirror when he dared to look. Not that he had done that a lot in the past five centuries. 

What would people think of it? A stinking corpse, beside a new one. Or maybe he would fall to dust as Lucy had done in her final moments. He wondered. 

Wondered? Death people don’t wonder.

With loud coughing, the Count’s body rebelled upwards. As if bitten by a snake, he turned around himself a couple of times, as if it would help to get away from something. Noisy his joints hit against the tabletop every time he turned and twisted, sending pain through him. The room got filled with yells and gagging noises. At the end of his fit, his upper body rose as if rising out of a grave escorted by a yelling that meant protest as much as wonder. 

Swallowing hard, Dracula looked around, his hands resting on the cold wood under him. It was his flat, the dining room. The curtains were torn from the ceiling-high window, a chair laying on the ground that had fallen when he had gone to drink from Agatha. This wasn’t the afterlife, and if so, it must be a cruel joke.

Agatha? He turned, finding her pale, lifeless body beside him. Blood everywhere. On her. The table, his clothes. Around his mouth. 

Puzzled the Count touched the corner of his mouth, feeling out the dried blood. A glance out of the window told him it was night. If he had been dead, he only had been dead for half a day. 

That couldn’t be it! In a raise of mild panic, he rolled from the table and ran to the window. His hands pressed against the cold glass he peered outside. The full moon was about to rise. The lights of the city defying darkness. Seemingly nothing had changed. This wasn’t the afterlife for sure. 

“What in —?” he swirled around looking for a clue. His hands felt out his chest. No heartbeat, no breathing. Not dead. Still undead. “But…!” Slowly he went over to Agatha’s body. It was Zoe, he was aware of it, but for him, it had always been Agatha. 

Leaning against the table, he watched her for a while, expecting her almost to jump up to startle him. Being undead, a bride of his then, but nothing happened. He had guessed, when, she’d be as lively as Johnny, but after five minutes he assumed she was gone. 

Clenching his jaw a little, he searched his inner for an emotion. While doing so, he tilted his head a little, one hand reaching out to her. His finger traced along her forehead, till it picked up a strand of hair that covered her face, to tug it behind her ear. She looked peacefully at sleep. The Count knew better, of course. 

“Agatha.” No, he tried, but there was nothing there. “I admit it was fun with you. This all.” Making a smacking sound, he shrugged the moment off. 

“For a moment, you had me! I thought you were about to get emotional over my death!”

The familiar dutch accent let a smirk appear on his lips, followed by a hum in appreciation, only to make him turn his head in horror when realising the voice was not his imagination. 

Agatha smiled at him. “Count.” 

Dracula stumbled back in surprise, his inner nature coming to light for a moment. Discoloured, sharp teeth, ready to bite someone. His eyes darkened while his right arm came up in his usual defence as when being violated with sunlight. It was a bit of an unusual sight, he wanted to attack, underlining it with a guttural hiss, but taking two steps back, trying not to fall over a chair close to him. 

Agatha watched with her usual expression. A mix of amusement that rose from her curiosity, plus a hint of sturdy reminiscence, she rarely had lost in their previous encounter. Not moving at all, only blinking a few times, she watched him stare at her in lack of understanding. “Ah, you are a lively one!” The accent thick, and always with a definite spring. Agatha chuckled.

The Count lowered his arm and faded back into his typical appearance, not without looking at the dead body on the table and then back to Agatha in front of him. He pointed at her, “You should be dead.”

Making a step forward to appreciate her death form for a moment she rose her head then, smiling bright, “I am. You did an excellent job!”

“But!” He needed to sit down for a moment, thinking it through. “This is not how it goes.”

Agatha had taken a seat across from him, her hands and arms on the table, fingers entwined, she nodded, “no. Something new then. Very exciting!”

Dracula leaned back half an inch, raising an eyebrow. After 500 years, he didn’t expect to be puzzled like this. Naturally, he had thought to have seen it all with the dead and the undead. He bites them, they die. Some come back. Some even are promising, like Johnny. 

“Ah, poor old Johnny,” Agatha smiled softly.

“What?” Dracula had never been someone letting his thoughts get out of his head through the mouth, when not explicitly wanting it. 

“Jonathan Harker,” she forced a quick, wide but thin-lipped smile on her lips. “You were thinking about him, weren’t you.”

“I was.” Dracula let his tongue trace over his teeth. The stale taste of Agatha’s infected blood still lingering there. Then his left arm itched, and he scratched the skin under his jacket with one of his sharp fingernails till he felt blood flow. Something was not right; every undead cell in his body was screaming that it wasn’t. Stopping the bleeding after a while, he focused on Agatha with his attention. She couldn’t be here. It had never happened before, why should it now? 

Jumping up from his seat and stepping around the table so fast, human eyes wouldn’t have been able to follow, he reached out, trying to snatch her up from the stool. 

“That’s not working.”

The only thing Dracula held in his hands was thin air. Agatha stood aside him, not having even flinched before, looking all smug at him. He tried again, faster this time, but nothing. She always stood somewhere else, and he never had the feeling of getting closer in any way. His eyes had gone dark again, and he was raging as only he could. 

“You are making a fool out of yourself, Count Dracula.” She stood right by his side, where she hadn’t the second before. 

His chest was heaving in anger and exhaustion. He might not have killed her the first time, but he would make sure to do so the second time. Hissing with saliva running down his chin, he tried to anticipate her next move.

“Boo!” she stepped forward then, right through him.

And Dracula did what he never did. He flinched, turned with her motion, gnarling like a mad dog, his claws hopelessly trying getting hold of her. His hair a mess he turned hectically left and right, but he wasn’t able to find her. Gone. 

“The beast flinching from a mouse,” she stood right in front of him. Out of nowhere. “Fascinating!” 

He had enough, “I am death, and this is hell!” he turned unsatisfied, peeved by the comment. “I am stuck in hell with you!” His voice pitched. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Count,” Agatha was visibly amused. “You know it isn’t true. We both know there is no God and no Devil; there is just nothing.”

He turned back at her, letting his hands slide over his vest, “How can you say that? Aren’t you a nun after all?”

“What can I say? I am a very liberal nun. Open to speculations.”

“Ah!” he raised both eyebrows. They were going back to their usual banter. “I drank your blood. I should be dead.” He waited for her to say something, but got disappointed. “I expected you to have an idea about why I am not dead.”

“Well, it didn’t go that well, I guess,” she shrugged and saw he wasn’t happy about her reaction. “There must be more.”

“More?” Dracula had begun to walk up and down along the dining table.

“Maybe it counts as suicide,” Agatha elaborated. “Remember, when Mister Harker tried to impale himself, it didn’t work.”

“Yes,” he turned, frowning for a moment. “Someone else has to do it.”

“Scriptures say, suicides carry the gift of becoming undead, so that’s why, isn’t it so?”

Dracula halted at the word ‘gift’ briefly, before carrying on with his wander, spotting the stake Lucy had been killed with. Without much thinking, he went and took it from the floor. 

“Here!” he walked over to Agatha. “You’ll have to do it then.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at his gesture. “I can’t.”

“Come on, Agatha,” he let his voice sound full and dramatic, “it’s what you wanted to do all this time. Get to me and kill me. This is your chance. Stake me!” He held out the wooden weapon with emphasis. 

Glancing at the stake in his hand, a sad smile appeared on her face, before she looked at him with the same expression. It rose another twitch between his eyes. “I can’t, Count, even if I wanted. And you know exactly why.”

Holding out the stake for another second, he let his arm drop and then the stake itself. While the clattering sound echoed away in the large room, he turned on his heels to not let Agatha see his disappointment. “You are not real.”

“I am not,” she pointed at the table. “I am dead, exactly as it should be. You drank my blood, all of it, as Zoe had drunken yours, having visions of me. The amount you drunk must have had an extraordinary effect.”

The tension in his athletic body vanished suddenly, making him shrink an inch, which didn’t take away his impressive high. “I wanted to die! After all those centuries, I finally accepted it.”

“Come on, don’t let yourself hang,” she tried to cheer him up with her usual positivity. “Let’s get moving; I am sure we find someone willing to chop your head off!”

“No!” he grew back to old high, his mouth half-open about the proposal. 

“You said you wanna die, so?”

“Yes, but what if … what if it is not working?” There were better ways to die; he was sure of it. “You are expecting me to walk around with my head under my arms when not?”

“Why should it not work?”

Dracula noted she was way too excited about the matter. “It’s just...I just a feeling.”

“A feeling? How odd. I thought you do not have feelings at all.”

Not willing to discuss the matter anymore he turned to the window, “I need to get out of here. I need to think, and I am hungry.”

“No! You can’t do that!” Agatha stepped beside him. 

The Count turned to her, “I am a vampire, what are you expecting me to do? Replace blood with orange juice or something?” 

“All I am saying is, you don’t need blood right now, you are just once again greedy,” she scolded him by pushing her arms akimbo, needing to throw her head into her neck to make eye contact. “Rein yourself in a little!” 

Annoyed Dracula waved his hand through the air as if to banish a fly, “Leave me alone!”

It helped. Agatha was gone. To make sure, he turned to check the room, but she was nowhere to be seen. His eyebrows wiggled content. Obviously, there was a way to make her go away, with a bit of willpower. 

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he suddenly spotted something on the floor. There, half under the ripped curtain, laid the crucifix van Helsing had taken off before her death, reflecting a bit of moonlight. Slowly he stepped up to, the feeling of contempt raising inside of him. Using his left foot, he pushed the curtain aside, revealing the golden chain and the jewellery thoroughly. Looking at it made his stomach revolt. Crouching down, he groaned in discontent, disconnecting his eyes from it here and there. When he was as close as possible, he could swear to feel cold sweat on his forehead.

“Come on, take it!” Agatha’s voice made him almost lose balance. “It’s not like you couldn’t.”

He turned, seeing her sit on the table, legs swinging free. Unwilling to indulge in conversation with her, he turned away again. Yes, he could, but as she had well explained, fetishes, hard to get rid off in just a few hours. 

“Why do you need it anyway?” she began to wonder. 

Dracula glanced at her, smirking, “Sentimentality.”

“Liar.” Agatha huffed. “There is no beast with sentimentality. “

Dracula counted till five in silence, and then quickly reached out for the crucifix, letting it vanish instantly into the side pocket of his jacket. Proud to have accomplished, he rose back up, rubbing his hands as if there was dirt on them together and then grinned at Agatha, “Maybe I am not the beast you are making me.”

“Maybe.” It sounded final, but the Count knew her too well by now and waited. Indeed. “Maybe you are so much worse.”

Dracula made a noise that meant he didn’t give anything about her comment, “Do me a favour, Agatha. As much as I like you, go away!”

He turned back to her dead body. Jack, the young man, would return sooner or later and find her, taking care of whatever was needed. There was already a plan forming in his Dracula’s head, and so he went to get something of Lucy’s ash and scattered it aside Agatha. It was better when people thought he was dead too — crumbled into ash and dust. It would do the trick. 

An inner urge pressed him to leave. A walk through the night, through one of the many cemeteries, would undoubtedly help him to sort his thoughts. He didn’t take much, only his phone and the clothes he was wearing. By now, he knew he didn’t need more. No soil from home, no protection from the sun, no nothing — except blood, but he had his resources and easy to come by. When the door closed behind him, he already sensed he wouldn’t return. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I will update on Saturday and then in a weekly time span. Let me know what you think and I am always in for comments, opinions and your thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dracula goes for a walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect a lot of people to read this first chapter, as I am used to write for small or dead fandoms. Some of you have probably figured, I am a non-native English writer. I am trying my best to avoid stupid mistakes, but they happen. 
> 
> I've created a Playlist on Spotify I listen to while writing for this fic. Maybe you like to dig into the mood with it.   
>  [Link](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1bp2POogxiv4rcL3eHnXq1?si=47o9As5MRYKk93p_24a2hQ)

“Where are we going?” Agatha had joined him after he had reached a cemetery not far from his home. She had kept quiet for a bit, had only watched him from the background.

“Why? Are you getting tired?” he raised an eyebrow in amusement. 

He had spent long years in solitude back in his castle, visiting the village only here and there for blood. Blood that was of no good taste. Over the centuries he had feasted on the healthy and well-off people until no one was left. They either had flown out of fear, or he had killed them. It was leaving him with leftovers for way too long. No one to talk to, no one that had half the spirit and versatility he had. That’s why he had decided to leave Transylvania and move to England. Johnny had reminded him how much he liked to be around humans, playing with them, tease them. It had been so much fun!

Chatting with a ghost wasn’t half the fun he had once, but better as nothing. 

“I was just curious,” Agatha said. “Where does Count Dracula go, after finding out most of his life is built on lies.”

“Glad you don’t get tired of reminding me, Agatha.” The Count looked down the pathway. A street came up in a few yards, separating the graveyard in two parts. The one closer to the church was the older part, dating back to the 15th century. Some of the graves looked like no one had taken care of them for at least a century, even he couldn’t tell. Moss was covering the lower parts, mould the upperparts and some of the names that weren’t engraved, but typeset with copper letters were rusting away or falling off. The air around the old part was stale and mouldy. Evaporations from corpses used to stay in the soil for way longer than anyone expected. Not that humans could smell it, they were way too limited in just everything, Dracula had often thought. 

Stopping for a moment he went over to a particular old tombstone, one corner already broken off. The names and dates were barely visible. Crouching down, he let his hand hover over the wet soil for a second. It must have rained over the day, what seemed like a bad joke regarding that in the morning the sun had been up. 

Letting his fingers sink into the dirt, he felt the little vibrations that echoed from all around him through the grounds. This particular grave was silent, but he could feel and hear others. 

“How many?” The Count watched Agatha lean against the tombstone, pushing his hand even deeper, eyes going shut. 

The earth was cold, colder as expected and he wondered what it would make with him when he would be buried down there for decades, centuries even unable to get out. Aside from knowing he had never cared about winter or summer, he wondered if the utter impossibility to get away and out would make him so insane that he would complain about it being cold down there? What would resting in a grave for hundreds and hundreds of years do to him? On the other hand, when one can’t die, what are a hundred years? 

Shaking his head, he retreated his hand quickly. There was no use to think about it. He had never done it before, why start now? “Seven. In this area.”

“Have you ever wondered if there is someone else like you?” 

He couldn’t relate to the question. “My brides.”

“That were copies; I am talking about originals!” Agatha clarified. 

Dracula stopped, looking at her in astonishment, “Like a Count Dracula 2.0? Hell, no! I’ve never thought of it.”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is, but these days you don’t need to be undead to be like me,” he made a disgusted sound. “Have you read the newspapers lately? I think there is this president — I’ve forgotten his name — I am fairly sure this guy is not human at all. And he is elected!” he laughed heartily. “What was I doing? Wasting my talents by sleeping 123 years in the ocean.” 

He walked on, out of the gate, which led to the street. About to walk over to the newer part, when a thought hit him, and he stopped right in the middle of the road, turning back to his companion. “Look at this world, Agatha! People saying I am the greater evil here, are blind!”

“Car.”

“Car?” he must have missed a clue.

“Car.”

The next thing he heard, was the sound of screeching tires. His silhouette got bathed in a blinding light, letting him know something was about to go terribly wrong within the next half-second. There was a holistic pain rushing through his body what seemed unconditionally absurd to him, considering him being a vampire. After hitting a metal surface first, the ground started to change position with the sky, what seemed way more bizarre as the pain. Only to realise that it wasn’t the ground that had moved away, but it was him flying through the air for no reason in his opinion. A split second later he hit another surface he could identify as the asphalt of the street, but only as he hit it with his head first, followed by the rest of his body.

Groaning, he turned onto his back. 

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” 

Hearing a panicking voice, Dracula raised the head unable to see anything but blurry outlines. He figured he had been involved in a car crash. 

“Hello?” A hand came around his shoulder. “Mister? Are you okay?” Slowly his vision became clearer, and he could perceive the outlines of a person. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Mister?”

Dracula shifted himself onto his elbows, blinking a couple of times until he could see again. A woman was staring at him with wide-open eyes, worried lines build upon her forehead, and her hands were holding onto his arm and shoulder. “You ran me over!” 

“Yes,” the woman’s voice was shaking. “I… I didn’t see you. I am sorry! I am going to call an ambulance.”

She was about to reach for her phone, but Dracula reached out to stop her, “No.”

“No? What do you mean by ‘No’?” her eyes roamed over him. “There is fucking blood everywhere!”

The Count looked down at himself; most of the blood was from Agatha and had dried by now. Then his hand came tighter around her arm, making her look at him. With a calm and deep voice, he repeated, “No.” Agatha had destroyed some gridlocked myths about him, but he still had some influence over a special kind of human beings. 

He and the woman stared at each other for a while, and Dracula was sure he only had to tell her to go away and she would, but then, “I am not sure what you are trying to do, Mister, but I am calling the ambulance and the cops now. I ran you over!”

He let go of her clicking his tongue, before stopping her again, insisting, “I am perfectly fine!”

“You are bleeding!”

“I am not!” The woman reached out and touched him by his forehead. Dracula flinched back a little only to stare at her fingers. Showing him that he indeed was bleeding. He reached out itself, feeling the cut the impact with the car had left. “It’s nothing. What’s your name?”

She frowned in confusion. The guy should be unconscious, dead or at least crying in pain after the accident. “Charlotte,” she answered absently, her eyes searching for a hint of what to do next in his face. “Friends call me Charlie.”

“Well, Charlotte,” Dracula straightened his back, making two dorsal vertebrae pop back into place loudly, “it’s time for you to go back on your way.”

Absently he let his hand feel out his ribs if any other bones needed a bit of stretching, letting his eyes linger on Charlotte while doing so. Having refused his mental influence, she seemed one of a better breed. Inside of him, something got set into motion. A particular need, his addiction. While she kept mumbling on about the incident, he found himself being fixed on her artery with his eyes, containing fresh and delicious blood which paced through her veins. The typical English pale skin made it easy for him to make out the blue line. His tongue trailed around the inside of his mouth, imagine how it would be to dip it into her ripped skin. The set free endorphins would give her blood an individual taste. A sudden warmth spread around him. 

“I am getting my first aid kid,” Charlotte glanced at his wound and then hopped up pacing back to her car. 

He watched her vanish behind the car. The warm feeling in his body was growing stronger. They always tasted best when they didn’t have time to feel fear. And Charlotte would still believe roaming for the first aid kit while he was already having buried his fangs into her soft skin, letting the dark claret run down his thirsty throat. With a soft snarl, he went on all four, slowly rising. There was nothing he could do against it. 

“What are you doing?” Agatha had kept silent all the time, and he wasn’t happy she had decided to interrupt now. 

It was best to ignore her. He never had remorse, another thing he decided not to start now.

Two more bones cracked loudly back into place, and he needed to stretch almost unnatural to make his feet and body step forward. The collision had left its marks, but the blood would help him to heal quickly. 

Agatha stepped in his way, “What are you doing?”

He stopped, tilting his head, “What does it look like?” A smile revealed his growing fangs, and then he stepped right through Agatha.

Charlotte was unaware of everything, ransacking her car’s trunk which was filled with a sports bag, old and empty mailboxes, a few blankets. “I know it’s somewhere!” She pushed the warning triangle to the side. “Jesus fucking Christ! Why I am such a mess?”

The Count’s hand trailed over the front of the car, feeling the warmth of the engine radiate around it. Oh, he would take his time with her, beginning to sip from her like from a good wine. The phantasie of tasting her blood, wondering what it would feel like, made him walk like being in a tunnel. Nothing else mattered. Once more blood had become his everything, and he was willing to sacrifice everything for it. His eyes had become bottomless pits.

“Count!” 

His breath went rigid; Agatha had become an annoyance. He was standing by the passenger door, sniffing the air. Scenting the flavour of Charlotte’s blood, hearing the rushing in her veins — he was blinded by his addiction. Two more large strides and he would be standing behind Charlotte and then she’d be doomed.

In premonition what would happen soon, saliva ran down his chin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I published this chapter earlier as planned, as I made good progress these days, so you can look forward to more next week. 
> 
> Thanks for your attention.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a vampire, things can go from calm to haywire within a blink of an eye.

“Coward!” Agatha yelled. 

Dracula halted on the word as if the nun had jinxed him with it. 

“Coward!”

The greed for blood turned into bottomless anger from one second to another. Rage always sent waves of heat through him, as if he was burning on the outside. Drinking blood was doing the opposite as if a firework was going off in the inside. He turned with a roar facing Agatha who peered at him from two meters apart, not smug, not humoured, but with a face as if out of stone. 

“Found it!” Charlotte announced then with a cheer, having found the first aid kit under the access cover in the trunk.

Having forgotten about the woman, Dracula turned by the words, finding her standing in front of him with a small bag, which she turned and twisted in her hands, trying to open it. Right the moment she raised her head, realising he wasn’t lying on the ground anymore, he turned his eyes and fangs back to normal.

“What are you doing?” she let the bag drop down, storming up to him. “You should lay down again!”

The way her hands began to lay on his upper body, trying to urge him back down surprised him. He wasn’t used or delighted when people were touching him out of nowhere. It was playing against his rules, that he dictated everything. 

He tried to turn away. “I am fine.” 

“No, no, no.” Every time Dracula stepped to another direction, the woman followed him. “I ran you over, Mister! I was way too fast; you can’t be fine.” She was still gently trying to get a hold of him in some way.

He had enough. Brushing her hands away, he stepped back, holding his hands out as a barrier, “I am perfectly fine! Look at me, do I look like someone who is hurt?”

She stared at him with wide-open eyes, taking in his appearance for a calm few seconds. Assured she was convinced he huffed, hearing his addiction call out again, “Listen, you have to go now.”

“What?”

Going for the bag on the ground, he grabbed it and pressed it into her hands, only to reach for her shoulders to push her toward her car, “you aren’t safe. You have to go.”

They both seemed to notice that his hands lingered a second too long on her shoulders, as she turned her head and looked down on his fingers that pressed into her shoulder muscles. It was usually the moment he would bite her, and for a brief second, he felt how his eyes began to unveil themselves again. 

_‘Coward!’_

The echo let him blink a few times and take his hands away, “Now or Never, Lady!”

She made a step forward, more mechanically, as if someone or something was urging her. The Count watched her without any outer movement. A danger was laying in the air, and he knew some of his victims were able to sense it almost physically. The way the woman shuddered for a moment confirmed his assumption she was one of the clever ones. Then, finally, she quickened her steps, pacing to the car. 

Half relieved, half annoyed the Count turned on his heels, looking at Agatha, who hadn’t moved from her spot at the side of the road. Raising a finger, he was about to give her ghost a shout, when — 

“— I can’t do that!” The woman was back again, calling out for him. 

It was unbelievable what humans did, not to get to safety, Dracula thought to puff his cheeks. He turned to look at her. 

“Listen!” she stepped up, almost to close, but didn’t touch him yet. “You are properly in shock. I’ve read about this. People wandering around, having internal bleedings or some stuff. I am not going away now only to read tomorrow you’ve been found dead in a ditch!”

“I am fine,” he could only repeat.

“You are dying!” 

“I can assure you that dying is the last thing I am doing!” Was he having a full-blown discussion with a stranger about his living status? An inner agitation suddenly replaced the urge for blood. He had felt that only hours ago, right before he had tried to attack Agatha. Something was not right. Ignoring the Charlotte, he looked around. It was way too silent, even for a graveyard. Since he had been run over, they had met no one else. Not even a car — and this was London. 

Dracula got ripped out of his observations when he felt a warm hand come around his, gripping it tightly. In dismay, he looked at the woman in front of him first, then at their hands. She did the same. For him, it was as if she couldn’t tell why she was suddenly so invading with this personal space. 

“We are bound together now!”

What an odd choice of words, he thought, only to repeat her sentence as a question, “We are bound together now?”

The moment he had said it, a wolf began howling in the distance, and his knees began to feel weak. A gasp escaped the Count, sinking a little, while he tried to fight gravity. 

“Mister?” one hand was still holding his. Now the other came onto his shoulder. “What is it?” Panic arose in the voice of Charlotte once more. 

Dracula felt he wasn’t able to stand anymore and slowly sunk to the ground. Every inch in his body began to ache as if a fever was running through him. 

“No!” Charlotte tried to keep him on his feet. “You can’t do that to me! You are like 6.5 tall; I can’t carry you to the car!”

“6.4!” Dracula sacked down, almost pulling her down with him.

“Jesus!” 

Sitting now on his bottom, he gripped her forearms, in pain, “Not quite!” His head hit the concrete, and he not only felt his bone crack by the impact but also hear it. Right as Charlotte did. Her eyes grew even wider as before. “Don’t you worry, it’s nothing I can— “it was like someone was gripping his throat while standing on his chest. What the hell was going on? Was Agatha’s blood doing its deed after all, only with a delay? If so, this wasn’t much fun. His body convulsed. 

At first, he looked into the night sky. A clear night, and he remembered faintly that as a young boy he had layn in the grass often watching the moon, the constellations and the slow turning of the earth. It was still the same constellations as 500 years ago. That he even could remember, puzzled him. 

His head dropped to the left in pain. He felt like crying because of the pain. At first, his vision was a bit fuzzy, and there were only shadows in the distance he regarded as trees. Then his ears helped him out. Trees didn’t give that sound. Another closer shadow caught his attention, seeming to circle around them and he heard Charlotte ask, "What is this?"

“Agatha…,” he breathed weakly, one of his hands ranging over the concrete, looking for something to hold on to. “Agatha?”

“Yes! I am here, I am right here!” she kneeled beside him, looking into the direction he looked. “What are you seeing?”

“So many…,” he was about to lose consciousness. “They… they are here.”

“Who? Who is here? Count!”

“They ... are coming… to get me,” his words drifted off into mumbling.

The reality was about to mix with the ghosts from the past. He was sure death was finally here to take him down with him, and then a hard, painful blow on his chest brought him back. 

Having to watch Dracula fall back and lose consciousness, the Charlotte did what every reasonable person would do. She checked his pulse, and when there was no pulse by his wrist, she went to press her ear onto his chest. It had all went by unnoticed by the Count, even when she had begun to reanimate him, cracking a few rips during it. 

“I am not letting you die, Mister!” with a steady force she had pushed her hands into his chest, in dire need to make his heart beat again. And when he had gone silent, she retorted to the last resort. Making a fist and hit as hard as she could. 

Coming up as if someone pulled his strings, he groaned, feeling his broken ribs stab him from the inside. “What are you doing?” his flat hand hit against his chest, making him spit out some blood. 

“Reanimation!” The way he looked at her in misunderstanding she clarified. “You heart! It wasn’t beating anymore.”

A little shocked he let his hands rest on his chest and side, afraid it was what might have happened that the woman had been able to bring his heart back to a rhythm. Perceiving, everything was as usual, he sighed, “Why would you do that?”

“I saw it on the telly.”

Funny little humans. “Stop watching telly!” He looked around the area. They were alone again. “It bankrupts your brain!” Not even Agatha was there. This wasn’t right. “Strange.” A few seconds went by, where he tried to come up with an explanation, but it lacked even him. He huffed only to feel something warm around his wrist. The Count turned, looking at Charlotte. 

“Strange,” her jar trembled just the slightest. Her voice became a whisper. “Strange, indeed.” 

Unsure what she meant at first, he looked down at his wrist — her fingers, looking for his pulse. Now, the story became interesting again. It was nothing he could control — not that he ever had tried. A vampire and blood were like a spoiled child and its toys. 

Their eyes met, and Dracula let a cheeky smile appear on his lips. “All this blood, Charlotte, you see, it’s not mine.” 

“Who the hell are you?”

The smile grew, revealing the Count’s canines, which even in a normal state were pointed beyond normal. Slowly, he leaned forward, using the hand she had searched his lifeline for, and placed it slowly on her chest. “I am Count Dracula.” His hand wandered up to her throat, pressing her onto her bottom, while he began to crawl over her. “But the real question, you should ask yourself is another, Charlotte.” 

She shivered, laying on her back, watching his claw come around her, wondering why she didn’t act against it. “What question?” When she looked back at him, his eyes began to fill with red and Charlotte gasped softly. 

The Count came closer, their noses almost touching, his mouth lingering by hers, “It’s in your head. It’s right there. Not who.”

As if someone wrote it out on a glowing billboard the question lit up in Charlotte’s mind, “What… what are you?”

Proud, Dracula grinned at her, his teeth now ready to bite, “Now, we are getting there!”

Opening his mouth, he wanted to bite her. Finally, feast on something good, and Charlotte would make an excellent meal, carrying him through the night. She didn’t seem like a lost cause, and maybe he could make a bride out of her. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Then there was suddenly a shadow passing them, a pitter-patter noise surrounding them. Claws on concrete. A predator looking for prey. 

Charlotte saw it first, unable to find out what was the greater danger. Him or the wolf.

The creature had been there before, having drawn circles around them, when Charlotte had tried to reanimate the Count. 

Letting go of Charlotte, the Count turned fast around, facing the wolf, only a meter away — ready to strike. Spreading his arms, shielding Charlotte, he bowed slightly forward, glaring at the animal. Hissing at it, showing his teeth he made clear who was in charge. With fast reflexes, the Count jumped ahead grabbing the impressive animal by the neck and throat holding it up. The wolf wailed. He could tear it apart in no time, Dracula had done it before. Instead, he held the wolf close, “never come here again!” Then he let it drop, and with its tail between its legs, the wolf paced away, back into the shadows he had come from.

“A wolf?” Charlotte stuttered, peering into the night. “In the middle of London?”

Dracula turned, surprised she was still there, “you won’t believe what happens at night, especially on a cemetery.” 

For a few seconds they just stared at each other, and then it was Charlotte who broke into a wild, comical fumble with her hands and arms, ending up to form a cross with her forearms.

Dracula rolled his eyes, throwing his head back, “Really? Do you honestly think this is going to work?”

“It’s the sign of the cross!” Charlotte shouted. 

“You are looking like you doing some dense karate trick.”

Agatha chuckled, rubbing her hands in excitement, “I bet it works on you, still!” 

The Count only regarded her with a short glance, “no, it doesn’t.” As to proof it, he stepped forward. Charlotte emphasised her posture leaning toward him, and Dracula needed to make a beeline. 

Before Agatha could say a word, he spoke, “It does.” Then he bucked up his ideas and stepped up to her, reaching for Charlotte’s arm. A short struggle happened, in which Dracula was, of course, the stronger. 

“You are going to bite me now?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you are a vampire!”

Agatha stepped up to them, “You won’t do you?”

Dracula let his eyes travel over the facial features of Charlotte. Her eyes were light brown, staring at him in fear. But there was something else. He couldn’t pinpoint it. “No, I won’t.” He let go of her.

“Why not, Count?”

Charlotte frowned, slightly shaking her head. This was too much of an adventure. “Who are you talking to?” 

“No one.” The way he said it, typically left no room for discussion. 

“But you do.” It sounded like she would point out something absolutely meaningless. 

Agatha was still waiting for an answer; he could sense it. One hand shoved into his pocket; he scratched his head with his other. Everything that had happened tonight didn’t fit at all. Instead of standing here, he should be downtown having killed at least three people, including Charlotte. He should follow the desire deep inside of him to drink as much blood as he could, as he used to. Only to realise there was not much desire left. 

“Charlotte, do yourself a favour and go. Back home or wherever you wanted to go. It is not an offer I make often.” When she kept standing where she was, he huffed, shrugged and turned around. “Goodnight!” And walked away.

  
  


“Why didn’t you kill her?”

“Why is this important?”

“Because, by all means, by now, everything is!”

The Count stopped, trying to answer the question, “Every time I tried, someone or something stopped me!” He walked on. “I am just tired.”

“Tired? Of what?” Agatha had not yet joined him again in his wander. “Blood? Killing maybe?” she turned back to the woman, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. “Who do you saw?”

“What does it matter, Agatha?”

She suddenly stood right in front of him, “Who do you saw, Count?” 

“I think you know that answer already.”

“And I think it is important for you to speak it out.”

“Why? What for. You are in my head, and no one else is going to hear it.”

“It’s like the look into the mirror, something you can’t do without being disgusted.” Agatha smiled at him. “You didn’t kill Charlotte because you couldn’t but because you not wanted.”

“You are a ghost; you are not real! Why should I even listen to you?” he exclaimed. 

“I am not Agatha. She is dead. I am not her soul. I exist because of her DNA in you, but mainly because I am you. I am that part; you are trying to deny since for more than 500 years. That’s why you should listen because you are the only person you are actually listening to!”

He stared at her for the longest, only to groan and turn away, “I never thought I would say it, but I am contemplating all my life choices right now!”

“You know it’s true! Your cynicism won’t solve the problem.”

“What problem?”

“That you still want to die, Count.”

“Obviously, I can’t, so let’s get over it!” he snapped unwilling to explain the matter.

“You think you can go back to your old self? That scene with Charlotte showed it so much that you can’t. You are torn between wanting to feed on someone, and also not. Who did you see, when you lay on the ground? Who?”

“Everyone,” if he would be a human, he was sure he would have a headache by now. “Everyone I’ve ever killed. That’s who I saw.”

Agatha hummed pleased, “The view from the mountaintop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your reads. I'll update within a week. Leave me your thoughts, when you feel like it!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We are bound together now." A sentence spoken by Dracula and Charlotte leading to unforeseen consequences for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay in updating. But I figured I had to write the whole story first because I had to change things back and forth and not wanted to end up in a big plothole. You guys can expect a quicker update intervall from now on.

_ ‘The view from the mountaintop.’  _

Repeating the sentence a couple of times in his head, he suddenly began to laugh out loud. The unexpected positivity didn’t reach his eyes, and quickly his laughing died out. He shook his head as it had become heavy over a thought. “I’ve asked Johnny about the sun, how it looked. Only to realise, I could look myself now, but I am here and not home.”

“The sun is the sun.”

“No, not for me.” Dracula objected. “Like blood is not blood. There is a difference.” 

The Count stepped forward, only to stop abruptly. His hand went to his head, a dizzy feeling coming over him. 

Agatha turned, looking at him. Himself was looking down to his shoes. His whole body tensed while he leaned slightly forward, always watching his foot which hovered in the air barely moving. Raising his head, he looked at Agatha and then turned around, looking down the street. 

Charlotte was still standing there. She kept looking at him all the while, but now he could see how she stirred into motion. Turning on the spot, he saw how her arms wavered around her as if looking for something to hold on to. 

“What? What is it?” Agatha drew back his attention.

Once more, the Count tried to step forward, but he couldn’t. He tried it with his hands, reaching out, what happened to be no problem, “I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

Then a jolt went through him, pushing him back a couple of inches. Instinctively he leaned against the force, not without turning around again, watching Charlotte. She seemed to have the same trouble as he had — being unable to get back to her car. “Something is holding me back.” Again he got yanked, his shoes now sliding him over the surface. 

Pushing one of his feet into the ground, he tried to walk away. It barely worked. Looking over his shoulders, he saw Charlotte do the same, and way quicker as he expected she got the meaning of it as much as he did. 

They both, maybe a hundred meters apart leaned away from each other, trying to get away. From the outside, it must have looked grotesque. As if an invisible rope had been bound around their middles, to indulge in a competition of rope pulling. None of them was able to get from the spot, also for the Count, it appeared Charlotte had the upper hand. He was inching into her direction very slowly beside pushing against the boundary with all his strength

Playing this game for a minute or two, they both stopped exhausted. And then Dracula decided it was best to get back to her, before she would get into the car, giving him the most miserable end one could get. He didn’t have to run; he only had to do a little trick.

Charlotte had turned, hoping she could grab part of her car to pull herself into the right direction but was too far away. She had seen the Count act unusual the moment something had pulled her forward. 

“This is unquestionably not the way I wanted to spend my evening!” she leaned into the hold of whatever was holding her, pushing her feet into the ground. It wasn’t easy, but with an effort, she felt she was able to get forward. 

Charlotte was leaning so steep into the barrier, that the moment the distance between her and the Count got lowered, she had no chance to balance herself out again. Suddenly surrounded by hundreds of bats, she saw the ground come closer, while she began to squeal.

“Watch it!” Charlotte had ended up in the arms of Dracula who had prevented her from hitting the ground face first. “The next time you try to get away from me, I might not be there to catch you.” 

Shocked by the sudden appearance, Charlotte bopped back up to her feet and shuffled away quickly. “How did you do this?”

The Count chuckled, tapping on his toes back and force, “Uhm, Vampire trick when I tell you I have to kill you.”

Charlotte made another step back, colliding with her car now. She yelped hysterically, owing to the intense anticipation, only to cover her face knowing how ridiculous she acted. 

“Kidding!” Dracula rubbed his hands together, waiting till Charlotte had found a grip again. “I have bad news for you. And me.”

That made her raise an eyebrow. “Let me make a wild guess,” Charlotte pointed with her finger between him and herself. “This little back and force has something to do with it?”

“Charlotte you are outdoing yourself with cleverness!” Dracula began to wander round her car, opening the driver’s door first and then the passenger door. “Look at the sky!”

She did as he told her, seeing nothing but stars, “What do I look for?”

His hands suddenly around her shoulders, he had joined her unexpectedly. She startled, but the tight but gentle grip avoided she would run away or even flinch. Turning with her on the spot, he pointed into the sky, “The moon.”

“Fullmoon.” Slowly she was getting an idea what Dracula was hinting at.

“Do I have to mention that every legend, every myth and every ridiculous saga always starts with the full moon?”

Charlotte blinked a couple of times and then turned in his almost embrace. 6 foot 4 seemed way taller as from a distance. “It’s about what I said?”

He let go of her, inhaling deeply before exhaling long, “I fear so, yes.” The situation was something between unpleasant and unsatisfying. 

Tilting her head, she felt how she squinted about the idea of what her earlier phrase had done to them. “We’ve bound together now.”

“Why did she say it anyway?” 

This time Dracula didn’t react to Agatha’s question to avoid Charlotte getting off track, “Yes, those words, a bit unusual for someone like you. Why did you say them anyway?”

Glancing around nervously she shrugged, “I don’t know, I… they were in my head and… oh my God!” 

“Charlotte, could you do me a favour, and stop reaching out to God all the time?” 

“Why? Are you allergic to God?” for a second she thought to have made the best joke in the world before she saw his grim expression. “Vampires don’t have a sense of humour?”

“There is no God, that’s all,” he said deadpan, and walked over to the car. “So, you drive?”

“Wait! What?” Charlotte followed him, watching him buckle up. 

“Safety first,” he grinned at her, folding his hands in his lap. “Come on! Chop-chop!”

“Where do you think you are going, Mister?” Charlotte made no impression of moving anywhere near the driver’s seat. 

“It’s obvious, isn’t it!”

“No, it’s certainly not!” she protested. The hell she would drive around a vampire in the city — not today, and certainly not in her car. 

The Count hummed exhilarated by her behaviour. “You humans, you are so — what’s the word — entertaining! It’s a full moon, such a beautiful night, we are bound together by a higher force, and if you like it or not, I am going where you are going.”

Agatha, who had found a space in the backseat chuckled. Dracula turned to look at her, only to join her in her laughter.

Disillusioned Charlotte stared into the night for a moment. It must have been way after midnight by now; she was merely tired. So tired that she decided, he was right, and she had no other choice. She pushed the door shut and walked around the car, picking up the first aid kit on her way, “I am his damn UBER!”

Dracula watched Charlotte settle into the driver’s seat, placing the first aid kit onto the centre console before fastening her seatbelt.

Then she started the engine but didn’t drive on. Instead, she turned looking at him.

After five hundred years, the Count was pretty talented reading in humans, and so he was able to read in Charlotte’s face like in a good book. At first, her eyebrows began to twitch nervously, certainly wondering how the hell she had gotten into all this. Then she glanced at his mouth and wonder got replaced by panic. 

Understandable, he thought, as he had tried to bite her — twice. Though, he kept silent, letting her work through the emotions. 

Letting her hands now trail around the steering wheel, she had directed her eyes to the street in front of them, gripping the wheel here and there to get rid of inner tension. Her eyes fell shut for a moment, and he guessed, she waited to wake up out of a bizarre dream. When this didn’t happen, she decided to accept the situation, nodding to herself.

Once more, she turned to him, which made him raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to say something, but instead, she grabbed the first aid kid again and pushed it into his hands. He didn’t get why. 

“You still…,” Charlotte pointed at her forehead. 

Dracula looked at the bag, noticing the expiry date had been outrun half a year ago. “Thank you, but I don’t need that.” He reached for the cut at his forehead and pressed the split skin together. 

Surveyed by a mildly horrified Charlotte’s. “I… guessed so.” 

They had driven to her place in silence. Her home, an apartment in a sort of shady neighbourhood, in a four-floor building. A building that stood half empty, what Dracula had noted by the many pasted up mailboxes downstairs. He had thrown in a comment here and there, without getting any reaction from Charlotte. Dracula assumed it was owed the fact that it was late and the past hours had been slightly overwhelming. So he watched her enter her apartment waiting for her to invite him in. Like humans always did, all casual. 

_ ‘Take a seat.’ ‘Come in.’ ‘Feel at home.’  _

Charlotte instead stepped in, leaving the door open and then turned looking at him how he lingered by the doorframe, giving her one of his smiles that usually worked. She cocked an eyebrow in surprise, not having believed this would work by the books. 

About to ask her if she not want to invite him in, Charlotte cut him off; “I am not sure what happened tonight, and what all this has to do with me. You go, where I go, but don’t believe one second, I’ll invite you in!”

The next sight he had was the outside of the door, almost hitting against his face when going shut. He had underestimated her. 

“You know you just could… enter?” Agatha was sitting aside Dracula in Charlotte’s hallway, both staring at the closed door of her apartment.

“Old habits die hard,” was all he said, resting his head against the grey-green painted wall behind him. 

“I think I’ve changed my opinion about you,” Agatha began after a while. The Count turned his head, giving her a mocked expression. “About you being a beast and that you are maybe even worse.”

“I wanted to kill her, feed on her,” he sighed, brushing over his dirty jacket, ruined with dried blood and battered by the concrete he had hit. “I am a beast. I am the monster parents read their kids’ bedtime stories about. You didn’t err.”

“Yet, here, are you sitting.” Agatha didn’t even try to hide her mocking. “Tamed. Like a good boy, waiting for an invitation.”

He only grunted displeased. 

A swift motion got his attention then, and he looked up, finding Charlotte standing in the door. Confident she had changed her mind, he hopped up again, “You invite me in?”

“No,” she said curt, but of course she wasn’t there to talk till the morning on one side of the doorframe and him on the other. She wasn’t heartless — in contrast to him. “Only when you swear. To behave.” 

He could very well guess what the word truly meant.

“Swear?” he savoured the word, it fitted so well with the myth he had become among humans. “On what, Charlotte? You have a bible at hand?”

Of course, she knew it was absurd, but still. She had to make a point, hadn’t she? “Has anyone tried to stake you, just for being too smug?” 

His nose wrinkled in amusement. “You are so cute,” he liked her. “You want me to swear, so, I can swear on the IKEA catalogue if you want me, it’s not like it will stop me.”

“That is not gaining her trust,” Agatha reminded him. She had already seated herself on the sofa inside Charlotte’s room. 

Dracula leaned against the doorframe, looking over Charlotte’s head, “I am just honest here!” 

“Why do you say that?” Charlotte had kept standing on her side of the frame, looking up at him. 

The situation reminded him of Agatha and him at the gate of the convent. “Why lie? I’ve bitten people at the end of a conversation, that started with ‘I am a vampire’. I don’t need to lie. And when I do, I do it absolutely terrible.” As he lied — on purpose — he smiled widely amused at her. 

There was no outer reaction, “Thanks for the insight, it’s not what I meant. I mean that about stopping you.”

He huffed, taking his hand away from the frame to clap them together, “Listen, I know I ruin this vampire legend thing for you now, but, I don’t need an invitation here. I don’t burn in the sun, and I can see myself in the mirror as much as you can see me. If I wanted, I would just come in.”

She stepped aside, considering her words carefully, “Not that I want you in here, but …” 

“Clever, I like her!” Agatha peered over the sofa edge. “Reminds me of me.”

The Count looked down to the floor, the tips of his shoes at the edge of her living room. Nothing was stopping him, not even a bad feeling inside of him. 

“Why do you want an invite?”

“Because, I am actually a nice guy!” he smiled broadly at her, showing his teeth. Noticing it, he quickly covered it with lips and his hand. 

It made Charlotte laugh, “That smile, I bet it was your bait, wasn’t it?”

Dracula raised an eyebrow in agreement, “Humans are so easy to get to.” 

It wasn’t what Charlotte wanted to hear. The door was going shut again, but Dracula reached for the door, “I didn’t bite you at the graveyard, I won’t bite you now. I don’t swear, because nothing is holy to me, but I’ll… promise!”

“Promise?” she said as if he had spoken a profanity looking at him unsure how to take it.

“What’s wrong with that?” he inquired, wondering about her reaction.

“I’ve seen people break promises that were worth lesser, for the most ridiculous reasons. I’d rather have you swear on something as giving me a promise.”

Dracula shuffled a bit from one foot to the other, trying to find a gap in her logic. Then he remembered something, “as you don’t take an oath, nor promises, you might find this helpful.” Reaching into his pocket, he got out the crucifix from Agatha, holding it with only two fingers by the chain not looking at it. 

“A cross?” she certainly had not guessed to pull such out of his pockets. Then she saw how he shuffled around even more.

“Just take it!” The cross was more unbearable to have, as to wait for an invite. So, he reached out for her hand and let the chain slip around her fingers, before letting go of her. 

Charlotte raised her hand and watched the jewellery tangle in front of her. The Count turned away with a sound as if having nausea. Considering his behaviour and the cross, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to wear it. Not that there was any religious belief in her. Slipping it over her head, she tugged the holy item under her shirt to give Dracula some relaxation.

“I invite you when you answer me one question.”

He turned, seeing the chain around her neck, but not the crucifix. “Sounds fair.”

“Who do you talk to all the time, and don’t tell me it’s you soliloquising. You interact with someone I can’t see.”

He hesitated but decided she had a right to know. “A ghost from the past.”

“Agatha.” Dracula made a surprised expression, which was mainly his eyebrows interacting. “You said that name a few times at the cemetery.”

“Did I say anything else?” 

“No. Not really.” 

Dracula pursed his lips slightly and then decided to trust her, “Good.”

The corner’s of Charlotte’s mouth flexed down. It was all she would get from him at this very moment, and she had decided it was just one more crazy fact to accept for the night. “Do I have to invite Agatha also in or..?”

Dracula needed to smile, genuinely, for the first time in ages, “No, she has already taken the comfort of your home.” He leaned against the doorframe again where Charlotte joined him.

“Neat.” A moment of hesitation went through her. “I am going to regret this, right?”

Dracula shook his head, his forefinger touching her hand, for a brief touch, “No, you won’t.” And then added after a moment, “Vampire promise.”

She needed to laugh, “You are sleeping on the sofa!” she turned, pointing at the furniture and vanished without looking back into her bedroom. 

“Is there no coffin?” he called after her, stepping happily inside, but didn’t receive an answer. He wouldn’t see Charlotte any more tonight, so he decided to make the best of it. Hopping onto the sofa, he turned on the telly and got his phone out. There was some business he had to take care off. He needed a new suit, and by morning he knew he would be bloody hungry. 

“I love ordering food in!” he turned with a grin at Agatha only to realise she was gone. Disappointment was written all over his face. “Delusions. Not half of what they used to be back in my day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am always open for comments and would love to read what you think so far. Thanks for the read!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Banter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to point out that I renamed my fic, I simply replaced "Series 2" with an actual title that is now "Man or a Monster", based on the song "Man Or A Monster" by Sam Tinnesz (feat. Zayde Wolf). I added the lyrics into the first Chapter. I have this song in my Dracula playlist and after listening to it for a million times I felt it was fitting.

The sound of the doorbell was yanking Charlotte out of her rest. She had been unable to sleep most of the night, googling _ ‘what is a vampire?’ _ ,  _ ‘what are the odds of meeting one?’, _ _ ’10 things you don’t know about a vampire’, ‘how to kill a vampire’, _ followed by an advert for  _ ‘Twilight’ _ . 

There were maybe three hours of sleep in her bones when she starred with bloodshot eyes at her ceiling, waiting for whoever had rung her door would go away again or ring again. 

Then she heard the entrance door and voices and got reminded of having a vampire sitting in her living room. As if lying on a heated metal roof, she jumped out of her bed, almost falling over her slippers. At first, she wanted to rip her door open, only to remind herself, it would be smart to be careful. Slowly she opened the door and peeked outside. From her point of view, she could see down the small corridor into the living room. 

Count Dracula was nowhere to be seen. Also, she heard him open cabinets in the kitchen. What was he doing, making breakfast? Stepping outside, she walked to the doorframe that led into her living room. All the curtains were drawn, and she could see his clothes hanging over a stool. Then she heard him come back and instinctively pressed herself against the wall.

“Charlotte, I can hear your breath, let alone I can hear your heartbeat,” Dracula announced. Charlotte remembered she had read about something like that last night. He’d probably heard her typing on her phone too.

Stepping around the corner, she found him wearing nothing at all, holding only a glass with a dark liquid in one hand. Making a 180-degree circle, she ended up leaning against the doorframe, “You are spare naked!”

“You ruined my suit!”

She glanced over her shoulder, trying to leave out everything below his chest, “What kind of excuse is that?”

Dracula shrugged and then went to open a clothes bag that was hanging by the door, revealing a brand new black suit. Taking a sip from the glass, he placed it aside and went to get dressed.

Charlotte waited a decent time till he was at least wearing trousers before turning around, “Where is this from?”

For a moment, he wondered who of them had slept for 140 years on the bottom of the ocean. “Amazon overnight shipping.” 

Charlotte gapped like a fish by the answer. “Why do I have the feeling recently that I am living right inside a satire?” She watched him slip into a white shirt, covering his enormous chest that was covered with dark chest hair. 

Dracula gave her a grin of fangs, and she couldn’t be sure it was because of what she had said or of her blushing. “Because you are. Your whole life is a skit. Created by yourself, and politics and social rules you all obey.”

The problem was the man was way too versatile and smart, “Sometimes I can’t tell if you are a cultured aristocrat or a blood-drinking psychopath.”

He laughed “because I am both?”

“Drac, I’d feel better if you just lie to me next time, instead of giving me all this nonsense,” she rubbed her tired eyes and walked over to the kitchen. There was still a 0.4 % chance of this being just the shittiest dream she ever had. 

Meanwhile, Dracula kept dressing, looking perfectly suitable when she returned with coffee in a mug. 

Eyeing the glass, he was holding suspiciously she inched closer as if this would lead to the answer she already had in her head. “Is this what I think it is?”

“What do you think it is?” he smirked while drinking from it with pleasure. 

“It’s clearly not a Chateau Latour 2009!” Charlotte protested. “I drank that one time, and it was crap.”

Taken by her rambling, Dracula bit his lower lip, dipping his little finger into the viscid liquid never taking his eyes off her. He didn’t need to answer, and he did not want to.

Charlotte huffed angrily, then turned around herself a couple of times looking around the room, only to pace into every room there was afterwards. She even checked the front door, expecting to find a body. Dracula watched all this without commenting on it. 

By the end of her resultless inspection, she came to a halt right in front of him, arms akimbo, “Where do you have the blood from?”

Dracula took a sip from the glass, letting the liquid swirl around his mouth. Slurping it between his teeth noisily, as if it was the fine wine Charlotte had mentioned earlier, “British, with a hint of Spanish. No, wait!” he rose a finger, taking another sip. “Portugues! Yes. Female, twenty-nine, Biologist. I love scientists! Look into your fridge!” 

Charlotte swallowed but decided she had to take a look no matter what. Standing in front of it, she noted it was big enough to hold a corpse. 

“Fuck.” How the hell was he even able to get to someone while being unable to get away from her more than 100 meters? “Damn.” Wasn’t her neighbour one floor down a woman about the age Dracula had mentioned? Not that she knew anything more about her, but minding the presence of Dracula drinking blood in her living room, gave the possibility a certainty. “Don’t please, God, I beg you!”

Ripping the door of the fridge open, she tried not to scream. 

“Have you truly expected a dead body in your fridge?” Dracula startled her. “Hilarious! But likely!”

“I hate you!” Charlotte stepped aside from the fridge, pointing at three blood bags that hung next to a couple of Red Bull. “You are not sane!”

“I never said I was.”

The door of the fridge got shut close with such force that it went open a little bit again and Charlotte pushed it unnerved shut, “I am getting a headache. I am going back to bed!”

“And what shall I do?” Dracula followed her back to the living room. He had glanced around in her flat, finding only a couple of books, he had read quite a while ago and a record player with exactly three records available. 

“Do I look like someone who cares?” she was not even mildly interested in making it comfortable in her home. 

“Charlotte! Charlotte…,” there had always been something in his voice that made people reconsider their actions. It worked with her too. “Listen… at least… Do you have Netflix?”

The question needed a second to sink in before she broke out in a long dramatic gesture — yanking up her arms — and a groan. Bending over, she broke into laughter. 

It was a reaction Dracula couldn’t place, so he joined her laughter, “What is so funny?”

Charlotte looked at him, seeing him giggle, what only spurred on her giggle fit, “Netflix.”

“You have it?” It had rarely happened he considered someone madder as he was.

“Yes!” by now, she held her stomach in pain.

“So, what’s the password?”

The giggle ended abruptly, and the smile on her face turned into a blank expression; “To hell with you.”

Dracula cleared his throat. “Odd, for a password.”

That again made Charlotte snort out loud, giving him even a slap on the shoulder, “You are  _ so  _ funny!”

“You are losing your mind!” he concluded.

“Yes!” she announced and walked off to her room.

“So, what’s the password?”

“I won’t tell you, Drac!” her voice was a sing-song, and only eased off when the door of her bedroom went shut with a bang. 

Grumbling the Count dropped down to the sofa, “Damn, I really wanted to catch up with the last season of ‘The Affair’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is probably a bit nonsense and similar to a crack-fic? I can't tell. I guarantee you the dramatic will come back soon. Thanks for your attention!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte has to go to work, and as Dracula can't go anywhere he has to go along. What could go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going back from Crack to Dramatic. Maybe.

After having slept for three more hours, she had reappeared being showered, dressed and ready to go to work. 

“I have to go to work.”

“Work? Why?” he had spent three hours on the sofa trying to rest but had ended up staring at the ceiling, drinking blood out of a milkshake container he had found, in lack of wine glasses. 

“It’s how I make my money, it’s how I pay my rent!”

He wasn’t keen on going outside in broad daylight, spending the day waiting for his companion, “I’ll pay it for you.”

“Why?” she glanced at the clock, packing her keys and a bag.

“Because by your standards, I am obscenely rich, that’s why.” 

“Listen, I don’t want your money. I just want to go to work!” without waiting, she left the apartment, telling him to close the door after him because there was no other way for him anyway. 

As he knew she had the upper hand, he decided it was best to follow, “Work is a waste of time. I thought we try to figure out this bond between us.”

She stopped at the staircase, trying to find the words to explain to him that she wasn’t keen on finding out what was going on with this so-called bond. That she hadn’t had the time for it, nor the energy. Rent was due next week, and her car was still running, but the hood looked quite damaged. It had to be replaced at some point, and she had absolutely no big money for it in her account. For a second, she thought to take his offer and make him pay that bill, only to decide it was not worth the dependence. 

“Solve it then! It’s your problem, not mine.”

“That’s very optimistically expressed.”

The worst thing for her was, he was right, “I can’t allow myself to lose this job. So, whatever you consider doing about this, it either has to wait, or you have to do it at my workplace.”

Usually, humans were all over money, he’d never had problems buying them in one way or the other. “I told you — “

“— I won’t be bought! I won’t be influenced!” Charlotte had clearly enough. Yes, she should be worried about it all. That he was a vampire, that three blood bags were hanging in her fridge and most of all, that this man, as charming as she thought seemed to be, had tried to bite her. Her life was even more chaotic as it was before meeting him, and she had no capacities left to deal with the undead right now. “We are bound together, fine. Wonderful, never dreamed about something more exciting!” 

“I love when humans exaggerate,” he said calmly, expecting her to break out into a lengthy lecture. 

“We play by my rules, end of the discussion,” she stepped up to him, feeling a cold shiver run down her spine when also placing a finger on his chest. “You will follow them, or I’ll stake you myself!” 

“You are heartless!”

She laughed dismissively, “Heartless? Is telling me the man without a heart.”

“I have a heart.”

“The last time I checked, it was not beating. So, it’s actually the same,” she had enough. “There is another important rule, you better write it down; we are not friends, Count Dracula. No matter what.” Exhausted emotionally by the situation she pressed her lips tight together, while Dracula brought a bit of tension into him, looking sour. “Grab a bag of blood when you need one, we won’t be home for the next few hours. I’ll wait downstairs.”

Dracula watched her hurry down the stairs, unwilling to move back or forth yet. 

“Did that hurt you?” 

Agatha had become like one of those people who always showed up at the wrong time. 

“No. How could it?”

“And yet, you look like somebody who is. You might deny it, but something is happening with you.”

“Nothing is happening at all with me, Agatha,” he passed her and walked downstairs. “Not you nor the girl will change that.”

Charlotte was patiently waiting, holding her phone in hand. “That’s weird, the weather app says the sun will shine.” Instead, a grey mist was stretching ahead, blocking most of the sun. 

Dracula glanced at the sky, humming. “Never trust the weather apps, Charlotte, they aren’t your friends either,” he passed her without looking and went to her car. 

She was sure the mist had something to do with him, but after the tension between them had arisen and hadn’t receded, she decided it was best to keep quiet. In the cafe, he had gone straight into a corner, keeping himself busy with magazines and playing with his phone. By the time the cafe filled with people, she had noted his interest was shifting from his phone to the people who came in. 

At some point, he was so heavily flirting with basically everyone that she guessed he would have at least five numbers at the end of the day. At first, she left him alone, not seeing a real danger. He was charming, she had to admit it, and for a moment she forgot what he was. 

When she saw him stand a little too close to a woman her age, trying to charm her into whatever, she decided it was best to remind him of his promise — whatever it had been worth. 

“Sorry, but the man is taken,” she approached the two, reaching for Dracula’s arm. “Love?” 

“Love?” he glanced at her hand around his forearm, she held in a tight grip. Excusing himself to the other woman, he let Charlotte drag him back to his seat. “It’s not a bond of marriage, Charlotte, no need to be jealous.”

“I’ll make it a ‘handcuffing you in the basement’ bond when you don’t stop looking for potential victims,” she scoffed at him in a low tone. “Because that is what you are doing. You shouldn’t temp yourself.”

“I am bored!” he hissed. “There is even a chance I’ll die of it!”

“Stop being dramatic,” she pointed him to sit down again and placed a cup of coffee in front of him. “Sit down and be quiet.”

“Why do you bring me coffee? I don’t drink coffee.”

“My colleague is already wondering about you,” they both glanced into the direction of the counter where a man stood giving them both a critical look. As in sync, they both smiled comically at him before turning back to their conversation. “What happens when you drink it?”

“I… I don’t know,” Dracula looked puzzled at the cup. “I’ve never tried.”

“If you die, I’ll make sure you stay dead, alright?” 

“I’ve honestly never met a person that was so forthcoming with her feelings toward me,” he glared for a moment, amusement then building around his eyes. 

Charlotte huffed. “Drink your damn coffee, Drac. I am off in two hours.”

They didn’t get that far. After drinking the cup empty, Dracula demanded another, like some bouser in a lousy movie that was set in the middle ages. He was high as a kite from the caffeine. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Charlotte had guessed something was wrong with him when he had begun waltzing over from his seat to the counter, doing a bit of nodding his head and gentle dance moves to the song that was playing. (AR: Dance Monkey Tones & I)

“What’s wrong with him?” her colleague had held back all the while, but now with Dracula acting strange, he had found a reason to make a scene. They never had gotten along well. “If he is causing trouble— “

“— he is not making trouble, Tom!” Charlotte hissed, knowing better. The Count wasn’t only erratic by the caffeine, he was entirely off, and that couldn’t be because of some drink. “Drac? What’s wrong?”

Dracula was breathing heavily, his muscles in his shoulders tensing up and down. Looking closely, Charlotte saw his eyes filled slowly with darkness. Something he tried to suppress. 

Tom reached for Charlotte’s arm, “Get him out!” 

“Shut up!” Charlotte hurried around the counter, trying to grab Dracula by his arm to keep him upright. Steadied by her grip, he stepped forward, slumping against the counter he leaned over, facing Tom with a snarl, “Yes, Tom, shut up!” 

Confronted with dark, demonic eyes, and growing fangs, Charlotte’s colleague stumbled back against the shelf with glasses and cups, rattling them, “What the hell?”

“Don’t!” she needed all her strength to get Dracula away from the counter, pushing him down to the floor. A couple of plates that had stood on the bar falling with him, shattering into pieces. “What’s wrong with you?”

Suddenly, she realised that the few people in the cafe had brought their attention away from the struggling man to the outside. Standing by the windows, they gapped outside, asking each other what was happening. The mist was turning from a light grey mess to a dark red menace. 

Even Charlotte found herself staring, “Fuck.” Knowing that one event was connected with the other, Charlotte turned her eyes in horror at Dracula who was struggling with an unknown force. Like back at the cemetery it seemed something would burst out of him any second. She went down on her knees, trying to hold him in place, “Tell me what to do!”

“They are coming!” a horrified gaze went out of the window, but Charlotte could only see the fog and nothing more. 

“Who is coming?” she pushed her knuckles hard into his upper body to get his attention. Hoping it would help him to go back to normal. Apparently, he had no command over himself. “I can’t see anyone!”

“Charlotte!” his body clenched into a fetal position, all in agony. 

“What the hell do I do?” ruffling her hair, Charlotte glanced around hoping to find help in someone’s face, but they were all attracted to the spectacle outside — even Tom. Dracula was too heavy to carry and in this state, his reactions would be unforeseeable. She wasn’t keen on being bitten or hurt. She leaned back, resting herself on her knees, running out of ideas. 

In the act of carelessness, she let her hand slump down to the floor. Her fingers brushing then over the scattered plates cutting herself. Feeling the pain, she flinched her hand up and gasped. A small cut by her ring finger and as usual when getting a cut there, a small amount of blood spilt immediately.

Dracula’s attention was directed from the window to her in a blink. With a snarl, he looked at the small wound — bloodlust floating in his body. The battle he had fought all the while between his inner monster and his human appearance was now lost. The full-blown vampire having the upper hand. 

Charlotte realised what was about to happen, and made a fist, hiding the hand behind her back. Shaking in fear, her thoughts paced through her. She wouldn’t be able to fight him. Yes, she could run away, but how far? If this was real bloodlust, he’d just kill someone else. 

Trying to crawl back, she reached the end of the line by feeling the counter in her back. Dracula had followed her, heaving and gnarling, on his face an impression of manic. 

“Please!”

It only spurred him on. Jumping forward, he pushed Charlotte down, his hands pressing onto her shoulders with force. 

Charlotte tried to struggle, but he was sitting on her, holding her in place and she knew she was going nowhere -- except out of a living state into a dead status, when not getting toward him. 

“Don’t!” she pushed her head around, trying to hit him when coming closer, but she wasn’t his first struggling victim. He knew what to do and how. Grabbing her face, he pushed one side to the cold floor.

Charlotte gasped, one hand that had free space to roam hit his side again and again. The struggle let the pendant around her neck, slide so that she became aware of it again. Feeling already his breath against her skin, she tugged at her shirt, trying to reach the chain of the crucifix to make it show. 

Having trouble, she felt how she got out of air and strength. If there had been a higher reason why they had met, than this reason couldn’t be; to end up as some sort of afternoon snack, she thought. Pleading was only encouraging, but it was the only retreat she had, “You promised,” it was only a whisper owed his tight grip. 

He halted.

“You promised!” it was now a little louder. Charlotte felt his grip loosening unsure if she was simply getting lost in unconsciousness or if it was indeed happening. When enough air had reached her lungs again, she turned her head staring at him. The Count was still caught in his bloodlust, but something was stopping him. 

Quickly Charlotte pulled out the crucifix. It didn’t fail its purpose. With a hiss Dracula lunged back, away from her, turning his face in disgust. 

“You promised!” she shouted now. 

They’d met not 24 hours ago, but something was happening not only with him but with them. Maybe that bond, was worth a little more as a simple annoyance. Getting back on her knees, she let the cross drop — only a meter between them. He had tried to kill her now way too often but never succeeded. Charlotte decided this wasn’t luck, but reason. 

Reaching out, she dug her fingers into his shoulder by his neck as hard as she could. The unpleasant touch made Dracula shift a little, but also let the dark clouds in his eyes slightly go away. “Tell me what to do!”

“Get me out of here! I’ll try to hold back.”

Together they were able to get him back on his feet. Charlotte decided for the back entrance that led into an empty alley where they wouldn’t attract that much attention hopefully. 

Too heavy for her she managed to lean him ungently against a stable of wooden boxes before collapsing against his chest heaving for air. “That’s one more rule for the day, Vampire’s don’t take coffee so well.”

She felt Dracula chuckle, “You are still bleeding.”

A shiver went through her. Glancing at her finger, she stepped away, “How do you know?”

“I can smell it,” he looked at her, his hair dishevelled. Breathing as if he had run a mile uphill. His fangs were somewhere stuck in between normal and vampire, as all of his appearance. “I can barely control myself. It wasn’t the coffee, it’s something else. I have visions.”

“Agatha?”

He shook his head, “No, not only,” he raised his head, looking down the street, listening to something. “I can hear them.”

“Who?”

Dracula shook his head. Then the door of the store went open, revealing an agitated Tom. 

“I am going to call the cops on your friend!”

“Tom, he hasn’t done anything!”

“He is a junkie, he threatened me!” 

For a second she wanted to point out, he had tried to kill her, but sharing a glance with Dracula, she knew he had enough. And when Tom began typing 911, he was in the grip of Dracula before even typing the first ‘1’. 

“Tom. Tom. Tom. Why can men like you never listen?” Dracula’s one hand had the man by the throat, the other was about to grab him by the head bending it to have access to his veins. “I bet you taste like the scum you are, but I can’t allow you to act like this.”

Charlotte watched in horror, unable to do or say anything. It wouldn’t help to get out the cross again, she had to get him away from here. 

‘Run!’

There was a voice, somewhere, but when she turned, no one was to be seen. 

‘Run!’

It got louder, and at one point Charlotte was sure it came right from beside her.

“Run!”

Of course. “Agatha…,” and with it, Charlotte turned and ran as fast as she could down the alley. She never had been a good runner, lacking skill and stamina, but she knew, she only had to hang on for one hundred and one meters. 

This wouldn’t end nice. Having battled with Dracula the night before over the upper hand of the boundary it had been physically unpleasant, and they only had tried to walk away from each other. Running away now, she expected to hit an invisible wall with unforeseeable consequences any second. 

It was like someone pulled at a rope that was wrapped around her middle very hard. The fact she had reached the end of the line didn’t hurt, but the way her feet slipped on the ground, making her fall forward did. Barley she could stop her fall with her hands, the rough surface pinching her skin. 

Charlotte looked over her shoulder. The Count too, was laying on the ground. Having been ripped away from Tom, who was struggling to get on his feet, but was able to escape in the end. Something Dracula did not want to let happen without resistance. Jumping up to his feet, he tried to follow, his arms stretched out, he hissed and growled in anger. Every time he tried to get after Tom, he ended up against an invisible cage, not letting him through. 

Seeing it, Charlotte decided it was necessary to get his attention back on her, so she began battling forward. It was more of a crawling, trying to get some grip under her boots mixing up with grunts. Intense exhaustion mixed with the pain vibrating through her hands into her body. It wasn’t only the little wounds the fight gave her, it was something else too. As if every inch away from Dracula drained her. It felt unnatural to get away from him. 

The day before, they only had tried so little to overstep the boundary — no danger in the air. Charlotte remembered having felt a bit dizzy what she had thought was owed the general fact of being bound to a vampire. 

Now the dizziness was not only back; it was also dragging along a stabbing pain in her head, followed by noises she couldn’t be sure were real. Every time she closed her eyes during her effort to get away, a strange inner feeling overran her. Yes, she was feeling the pressure that went with the distance to Dracula, but on the inside, it felt different. As if she was very tired, and waves of exhaustion went through her — it was the same feeling only more powerful. She was losing herself. That hadn’t happened before. 

The same seemed not to be true for the Count. When his victim was out of sight, he slipped and fell on his knees, panting for air he didn’t need. He was drained of power but didn’t feel any unconsciousness coming. 

“You are losing control,” Agatha had stayed with him. 

He rested on his back, unsure what was going on and in anticipation for something else to come. 

“I don’t.” He raised his head, propping himself up on his elbows then seeing Charlotte lay at the end of the alley. “Charlotte?”

“Why are you worried?”

The Count turned his head to Agatha, looking at her first in incomprehension, his brows furring about the question when he understood the more profound meaning. He looked back down the street, waiting for Charlotte to at least move a little. Then he closed his eyes leaning slightly forward listening. He was too far away to hear her heart, it only worked in a particular range. 

“You worry about her? Why would you do that?”

“Agatha, keep quiet.” Dracula stumbled back on his feet, having trouble doing so. He even needed to reach out to Agatha for support, only to fall through her, finding hold by one of the boxes. 

“It’s just another human being.” Her expression was stern. “Look at you! Getting sentimental?”

Her behaviour rattled him. “You only try to rile me up.” It worked.

“You are getting weaker by the hour, and I am not only talking about physical strength.” Dracula had set foot into the direction of Charlotte, having trouble walking a straight line.

Agatha was right, something was happening with him, and he wasn’t particularly happy about it. 

“Why become attached?”

He glanced driven by her words and his want to help her back and force, “I am not attached!” 

“What’s that called then?” Agatha looked down at him, arms akimbo. 

His head began to hurt. He knew why. Agatha had been right from the start, he only had ignored it. That she was him, always the opposite of what he felt. Two souls battling for the upper hand. 

The Count looked from Agatha back to Charlotte, letting the question go round in circles for a bit. “We… We’ve been bound together.”

“Whatever that means… .” Dracula noticed how pleased Agatha seemed to be making all those remarks. She was messing with him. He was messing with himself. “You should bite her, and if only to find out what will happen then.”

He had enough of her. With deep red eyes, he turned, flashing his teeth at her. 

“A glimpse of the beast again?”

He decided to ignore it and hurried down the street. Charlotte laid there not moving, and he leaned over her then, one hand on her chest, only to look in terror back at Agatha. There was no heartbeat.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the read. Update coming soon. Leave your impression of this fic!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glance at the past. A glance at the reasons why Dracula is who he is.

There were echoes everywhere, noises of someone running up and down the steps. Mice scurry behind walls. Cats pacing through narrow floors. Sounds of a raven, birds, bats maybe. Everywhere. In a room dark and cold, with a long table, where a dozen grown men could eat and an open fire in the fireplace behind the main chair. Fruits, bread and meat served on metal plates and in metal bowls. Candles tried their best to light the place. The air was stale. The chairs seemed old, and the room looked so huge, but Charlotte couldn’t see much. The fire nor the candles had the power to bring light into the shadows, which seemed darker as natural. 

Was she dreaming? Letting her hand brush over the table surface, made her wonder if this was real. The wood felt real, the fire felt warm, the food seemed real too. There was bacon somewhere in between, she could smell it. 

Hearing the noises, she turned back and forth. The perfect haunted house, she thought, “Hello?” 

A door opened, and a young boy with black hair ran inside, cackling with laughter, running around the table. He was playing with a wooden figure, Charlotte saw it was a dog or a wolf maybe. 

“Hey!” But the boy didn’t react to her, and when she tried to approach him, he just ran through her. “Wait!” She turned with him, wanting to follow, he dissolved into fog. Replaced quickly by another person coming in through another door. A young man, and this time Charlotte knew who it was.

“Drac?” He didn’t see her either. So, this was a dream, but what good for? 

Figures began to form, always being the Count. It went faster and faster, and while one person dissolved, two others had already appeared. Like someone was projecting several films at high speed. 

Then Charlotte understood, she was getting a glimpse at Dracula’s life. From being a boy to a grown man. A warrior, a monarch ruling his area. From a kind boy, playing with wooden figures to a ruthless man, coming home covered in blood from the battle. And with time, everything seemed to wither away, but not him — not him. The historical glimpse she got, turned into a nightmare, when she saw him feed on people, saw him turn into the vampire everyone was scared off. 

It didn’t take long to watch this film of his life. And at the end, she saw an old man with long white hair sitting in the chair by the fire, brooding. Carefully she walked closer. For a minute, she circled him when he suddenly stood in front of her. The air was buzzing with anticipation, and besides knowing she either was already dead or this was a dream, she felt fear. 

“Is this you?” the old Count asked, his voice calm and almost caring.

Too anxious to answer, she only stared at him, hoping he was talking to someone else. 

“It has to be you!” he stepped forward, and Charlotte immediately stepped back. It was better to get away, so she turned only to find him right in front of her again. Covering her mouth, she stopped herself from screaming. 

The Count tilted his head, his eyes roaming over her face, an amused expression on his lips. While she was still pressing her hand on her mouth, she watched in horror how he raised one hand. Beginning to tremble, she was unable to stop her from doing so. His long finger and pointy fingernail reached out to her cheek — and touched her. This time Charlotte couldn’t hold back a squealing noise. 

Then out of a sudden, he turned walking to the staircase which went up in endless circles. Charlotte was afraid to move, and then the old Count looked over his shoulder, “Come. You haven’t seen the whole truth yet.”

She wasn’t keen on following him, she rather bail-out when she would have had the slightest idea where the exit was. Once again, he called out for her, seemingly already at the top of the stairs. There was no other option than to follow. The tight knot in her belly told her, she wouldn’t leave this place when she wouldn’t listen to him.

The only good thing about this dream, vision, or whatever it was, was that she didn’t feel any exhaustion climbing all those stairs. It only seemed endless. Round and round, and then behind a column another staircase, hidden in the dark. 

The old vampire was always in front, more scuffling as walking, but every time Charlotte thought to have caught up with him, he was further away again. 

Damn those vampire tricks, she thought, finding herself in front of a wooden door with a rusty handle. With a long huff, she pushed her shoulder against it, finding herself on the outside then. The tower of the castle, bathed half in light, half lying in the shadows. The sun was about to go down. The old Dracula stood in the shadow, watching her how she carefully took in the limited space. 

Glancing over the small ridge, she turned quickly away from the high. “You didn’t bring me for the view, did you?”

Dracula laughed hoarsely, “This place here,” he pointed at the ground, balancing along the line of shadow and sunlight, “was always a good spot. For hiding as a young boy, and later sorting my thoughts before battle as a grown man. It’s also the place, all this began.”

“All this? What’s this?” Charlotte shook her head, but he didn’t answer, only stepped aside making room for another man, that had hurried up the stairs now coming to a halt at the ridge. One hand on the stone balustrade, bowed slightly to catch his breath. Charlotte soon realised it was Dracula himself. His black hair was long, his face was hiding behind an overgrown beard, and he wore the clothes of the time back then -- it made him all look wasted. 

He couldn’t see her and lamented in a language Charlotte didn’t understand. Rumanian probably. Walking in circles, the man wailed and seemed in agony. 

Unsure what to expect, Charlotte looked at the old Count. She felt uneasy by his side, but there was no place to go, and when he asked her to give him her hand, she consented. 

The cold fingers came around her wrist. A strange touch making her shudder, but quickly she got why he had searched the contact. The words the young Dracula was speaking turned from foreign to known. The touch was helping with the translation.

“I curse you!” with it Dracula pulled out a dagger, holding it against his chest.

Startled by the action, Charlotte was about to step forward, but the grip around her wrist didn’t let her. In confusion, she looked at him. 

“My family used to die in battle,” he began then to explain. “It’s the greatest honour one can be granted with. My father, my brothers, my cousins. Great fighters, honourable deaths. But I… a shame!”

Dracula was now kneeling, the shadow half touching him. Still cursing the powers to be, the dagger placed where his heart was beating underneath. Charlotte understood now that this was the human Count Dracula. 

When the old Dracula let go of her again, the dagger vanished with a grunt into the chest of the young. 

“Oh my — !” she turned away. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Because this is where it started!” He reached for her shoulders, making her turn again. 

It didn’t take long, and the seemingly dead body of the younger Count came back to life. The sun had gone down, and the human Dracula had become the Ruler of the Night, the first-ever known Vampire. 

In horror she saw his body spasm around, giving the ugliest noises before a prolonged wheezing escaped his mouth — probably the last breath of air he had ever taken. Followed by a quick motion letting him come back to his feet. 

Unsure what had happened, the fresh vampire looked at the dagger which was still deep in his chest and pulled it out with force. No blood was spilt, no pain was felt. Throwing it over the ridge, he turned to Charlotte. 

“This is where it started, Charlotte.” Next, she found herself face to face with him, the old Count vanished without her having realised it before. 

“I don’t understand a word you are saying!” she stepped back, bumping against the stone wall. Now cornered by the newborn vampire who reached out for her shoulders, she tried to press even harder into the small space of the corner. 

“They are coming, Charlotte!” The light touch turned into a full blow grip of his around her shoulders, pulling her in, “They are coming!” 

Charlotte began to spill tears out of fear. “What have I to do with all this?”

A familiar smirk appeared on his lips, “don’t you know?” 

She shook her head, there was no reason she could think of it that made her as an average person to a person of interest and purpose.

Dracula glanced down to her throat and the back to her eyes, a gentle smile on his lips, as if he understood, “You will. For now, remember, blood is lives.”

His grip loosened for a second, only to open his mouth fully, revealing his fangs. Then he pulled her in harshly, driving his teeth into her skin.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so I leave you hanging with another cliffhanger...


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte was allowed a glance at Draculas past. How will this affect the bond between them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoever is keep reading this story, thanks for doing so.

The pain she then felt wasn’t by her neck, it was at her chest, and besides never having been bitten by a vampire before, she was sure, it should feel different. This now, was a dull pain as if someone was hitting her. 

Dracula had done what any reasonable person would do, he had commenced life support measurements. With one hard blow, he brought Charlotte back to the living. With a loud gasp, she came up, facing a shocked looking Dracula. 

“Charlotte!”

As he had done before her hands began to roam over her chest uncoordinated, feeling her muscles ache. Then she felt out her neck, searching for the wound the Count would have left, but nothing was there. No one had bitten her.

“Charlotte?” Dracula watched her shift around on the spot confused. Panting, her eyes roamed around the area eager to find something familiar, but for him, it seemed she didn’t know where she was. “Charlotte!” he shouted, grabbing her by the shoulder.

His action had an effect. Jerking with her head into his direction, her eyes flickered over his face, up and down, from left eye to the right. Still confused, but then he saw the befuddled emotion being replaced by anger and fear. 

There was something different about her, the way she looked at him. Dracula sensed; whatever had happened within the five minutes without a heartbeat, had set something in motion. 

As if being bitten, Charlotte jumped up from the ground, “Don’t touch me!” All wobbly on her feet, she lost a steady ground quickly, stumbling backwards against some boxes.

“Slow!” Dracula followed her, reaching out to her. “You are aware you’ve been dead for five minutes, aren’t you?”

The boxes she leaned against, gave in, and she had trouble not falling back to the ground. It was hard to comprehend his words about having been dead. The experience hadn’t felt like it. If it had been the afterlife, it was the last place she had expected it to be. 

“No!” Charlotte pushed him away, finding a steady stand finally against a wall. “You!”

“What is it?”

“You go away!” she only said, looking down the alley. Aside still being slightly disoriented, she was sure her car was standing down the road. So she marched off.

Dracula was unsure what was happening and what to do. Then he remembered Charlotte would not get far without him, so he followed. “You know I can’t!”

Ignoring him, she paced down the street, slipping here and there, almost falling once, but she could see her car already. 

This behaviour was something he couldn’t grasp. “Good for you I once bit a paramedic, which means I knew what to do. Saving your life and so on.”

She stopped for a moment, looking at him with a puzzled expression. Then she shook her head and walked on.

Dracula had enough, with a quick motion he was in front of her then, holding up a hand, “God, damn it! What happened?”

Charlotte had trouble reacting as fast as he had moved and needed to balance herself out by flailing with her arms. 

He saw her look at his hand for way too long, before raising her head to look him in the eyes, a frown appearing between her eyebrows.

“God?” she ended the question with a dismissive huff. Reaching for her temple, a pain building up from the inside, she stepped around him, so she could finally reach her car. 

Becoming aware that his companion would drive off without him any minute, Dracula stepped in front of the hood, “You really want to find out what happens when you drive away without me?”

The engine was already running, and the only thing she had to do was push down her foot. But he was right. 

“Damn it,” she whispered, her fingers grabbing the steering wheel so tight her knuckles turned white. Then she unlocked the passenger door. 

Without another word, Dracula took her statement and hopped in. “Charlotte?”

“Don’t speak. Don’t move and you do anything suspicious, I am going to ram this car into a wall.” She covered the fastener for his belt with her hand. 

He understood and only nodded. 

“What has happened, Charlotte?” They had arrived at her place and aside from telling him to not enter her flat, he had ignored her deliberately. Though, he kept a distance. “What did you see?”

“How do you know I’ve seen something?”

“You act like a scalded cat, that’s why,” he hesitated then, “and I can feel it. Something different radiates around you. People touching the afterlife often do.”

Charlotte was pacing up and down, only the sofa separating them. She stopped, pointing at him, “As if you have any idea of what the afterlife looks like!” 

Dracula leaned slightly back as if the sentence had a physical force that was getting to him, “I... “

“Are you speechless?” it had been intended to sound mockingly, but seeing the way he shifted, she felt almost guilty. Then common sense got the better of her. “Don’t do that!”

“Do what?”

“Doing as if you have feelings!” She was infuriated by his presence alone. “I’ve seen it! I’ve seen it all!”

“This must have been a hell of five minutes then,” he scoffed. Why should he be impressed in any way?

Charlotte stepped around the sofa, “Shut up!”

Their height difference was at least 7 inch. His broad shoulders and tall build always had been his advantage. Now, towering over her, he had the feeling she wasn’t as impressed as she had been in the beginning. “You are forgetting yourself, Charlotte.”

It was exactly like that, for a second she had forgotten what he was. She retreated a few inches, “Did you ... kill Tom?”

He raised an eyebrow, having already forgotten about her co-worker, “I am sure he has wet his pants, but I didn’t… bite him. Your little trick worked.”

Charlotte let a relieved sigh escape, “Agatha told me. To run.”

“Ah,” he gave it a dismissive gesture, “sounds like her. It seems our little bond here makes you … prone to the higher spirits or however you want to call it.”

She’d somewhat prone to germs, she thought, not remembering when the last time was she had a cold. 

For a while, they only stared at each other. Charlotte pacing up and down, Dracula standing by the door watching her, his hands in his pockets. He was confident she would open up when she wanted to, and indeed after a couple of minutes, her pacing became slower.

“Once in 1734,” she slowly began, stopping in her tracks, searching for the details in her mind, “you massacred a company of military men. 60 in number. Every soldier, strong as an ox. At the end of the night, you stood in so much blood it covered your calves.”

It was a story from long ago, he missed out the details, but he could faintly remember the bloodbath he had left behind back then. 

He nodded, grasping now what she had meant with ‘having seen it all’, “The forest was deep, the night back then was dark, and I didn’t let anyone go. Not even their moving corpses. Winter came, and the company was first missed and then forgotten.” There was not much emotion in his words. 

“You … ,” she had to bend over for a moment, feeling nausea rise. Now back in her reality, the pictures she had witnessed had so much more impact as in her vision. 

Dracula had been of course a vampire before that incident. She had seen him try to kill her and her colleague. It had been terrifying, without question. Yet, her observations and opinions are only made from a distance. Not seen as a person but as the myth he and his kind were. A creature others wrote and read in books about. Ideas shown in the cinema. It hadn’t been real for her, not even when he had bowed over her, his fangs only inches away from her skin. 

Seeing him tear people apart for blood as if it was fun, had shattered a balance in her how she had tried to see him. Like a bowl having shattered on the ground, never able to repair it completely. 

“Those 60 men,” her voice was hoarse, fighting down a couple of tears, “you didn’t even need all this blood.”

48 hours ago, he would have laughed it off. It would have been irrelevant, Charlotte would have been irrelevant. Nothing had mattered, and then Agatha had come along, destroying everything there ever was. 48 hours ago, so many things had been set into motion, and only now, he began to understand what exactly. 

“No,” he remembered he had fed on two or three and had spiralled into a ravishing bloodlust, “I didn’t.” 

Does a beast need a reason? Was Dracula the beast she had seen? “Why then?” 

Funnily enough, no one ever asked him this one question before. Probably because for the majority, it was clear why. “Because,” he leaned forward his hands resting on the backrest of the sofa, a fleeting smirk appearing on his lips. A memory that crossed paths with him. Johnny would laugh at his answer. “Because, Charlotte, I am a monster.”

He must have killed hundreds in his wake, Charlotte guessed, thousands counting the battles he had led back being a human. 

“Do you sometimes dream, Drac?”

“No.”

“No?” his answer confused her. “Everybody dreams.”

Dracula knew where she wanted to go and gave it a sad smile, “I don’t sleep, Charlotte. I rest, I sometimes sort of hibernate, but I do not sleep.”

“Could you… sleep?”

“Yes, but I prefer not to. For reasons.”

Charlotte now smiled, understanding him, “I see.” 

She was about to say something to it when something else caught her eye, “Your hair.”

“What’s with it?” he reached up unsure what she meant. 

“You... You are going grey.” 

A grey strand of hair starting at his forehead ending at the back of his head. It hadn’t been there in the morning. 

“Do I?” the little wrinkle between his eyes twitched. 

“Yes,” she glanced around and saw the mirror by the entrance. It was veiled with one of her shawls. Grabbing his arm, she removed the fabric, pointing at the mirror, “look.”

Giving the reflection his usual superficial glance, he found Charlotte stare at him in misunderstanding. Her looks then started to dart between him and the mirror. Of course, she saw the same man there as in-person right in front of her. Seeing him hesitate in connection with the dream she had, she knew there was more to it. 

Her hand slid from his forearm down to his wrist. A gesture Dracula tried to flee from, but this time it was Charlotte’s grip that was relentless. Knowing they could only solve the riddle together, what meant Charlotte had to know more like just the partial truths, he gave in.

The image of a middle-aged man shifted into a rotting old man staring at her in the mirror. To Dracula’s surprise, she didn’t flinch or showed any sign of surprise or disgust.

“Is that how you see yourself?” she looked back at him, still holding his wrist. 

“I do.” 

Once more, she looked the old self over. “I see.” Letting go of his hand she took the shawl and hung it back over the mirror. Then she regarded his grey hair again, “do understand what this all means?”

He had figured it somehow between going mad in the cafe and having the discussion with Charlotte back in her home. “Yes. I think I do. We have to go on a journey.”

“To where?”

“My home. The place I’m born.”

Charlotte began nodding, “Castle Dracula.” 

“Yes.”

Charlotte remembered the words of the old Count, about it all having started there. Sometimes she was a bit slow on the subject, but she had figured out by now, that when someone was talking about a start, an end wasn’t far away. The question was, what kind of end or whose end.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will now happen faster.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dracula and Charlotte go back to the place where it all has started.

While Bucharest had been busy with people and traffic, the area around Dracula’s old home in former Wallachia had eased into a rural region mile by mile. For Charlotte, it seemed like a time travel from the modern world to a world that wasn’t living in the 19th century but also not living in the 21st. People seemed to be leary, looking away when they passed by with the car they had rented at the airport. As the navigation system stopped working at some point, Charlotte had to ask for the way, which hadn’t been easy. As if there was an aura of evil around them, people scurried away into their houses every time she tried to ask for the way. 

With them a hazy weather phenomenon seemed to grow out of nowhere, bringing a massive premonition with it. Charlotte knew it was because of the Count but didn’t say anything. Frustrated nevertheless about not knowing the way, she decided at some point to park the car a bit away. It was best, leaving Dracula behind to try her luck with an elderly woman who was sitting in front of her house. 

“Alo!” she approached the woman with a bit of Romanian she had googled in the aeroplane. “Uhm… Bran?” Bran was the town close to the castle. Dracula had told her to ask for it. Unused to car’s, he could only tell her the general direction and nothing more. As she wasn’t keen on driving forever, she had decided to ask at some point. 

The woman was wearing a dress that seemed very traditional. Her face was wrinkled, and her eyes didn’t move when Charlotte spoke, only her eyebrows formed into a frown. 

Unsure if she had heard her question, Charlotte repeated it and pointed in various directions, hoping the penny would drop. Nothing happened. With a sigh, Charlotte pushed her hands into her hips. Staring back to the car that was about to vanish in the mist which got thicker by the minute. Probably better no one saw Dracula, she thought, while looking around to find someone else to ask for the way. The old lady was seemingly deaf or didn’t understand her. 

The house behind her seemed old, way too old and for a brief moment, Charlotte wondered if it would survive another year. The plaster was coming down, and the shutter of the windows needed repair, the wood was slowly rotting. No, aside from the woman, no one seemed to live here. 

When Charlotte turned, she almost stepped into the arms of the woman who had risen from her chair without a sound. Shocked, Charlotte let a gasp escape, “Christ!”

“Bran!” the woman looked intently at her, and only now Charlotte noted, the woman was blind. Her eyes were grey as the mist around them. 

“Bran, yes,” Charlotte was just happy to get some information out of her. “Which way?”

Instead of answering the woman reached out and found the chain around Charlotte’s neck, that carried the cross under her shirt. The wrinkled fingers, felt along the chain till they found the cross and felt it out too. “ _ Nu ești în siguranță. Diavolul călărește cu tine*.”  _

“What? Wait!” Charlotte brought out her phone. “Say again? Nu ești…?”

The woman did, grabbing Charlotte by the shoulders now, adding a “Nu, Bran. Nu!” What even she could understand. After that the woman retook a seat and entered her zen-like state she had had at the beginning, only mumbling the phrase once more Charlotte had recorded on her phone. 

Unsure what to do then, Charlotte decided to go back to the car. The mist had absorbed it completely. When she returned, she looked at an exhausted Dracula, having gotten even more grey hair. 

“And?”

Charlotte looked into the direction she just had come, the house no more visible through the mist, “I don’t know. I recorded something she said. Maybe you can translate?”

He listened to the recording, that played in a loop till Charlotte stopped it looking at him in interest. 

“What did she say?” she urged.

Dracula swallowed, “Just go straight.”

“Just go straight?” she shoved her phone back into her pocket. “When you say so.” 

When they passed the house at a slow tempo, the woman was nowhere to be seen, only the chair was left behind. 

_ (* You’re not safe. The devil rides with you.) _

__

They drove another two hours. Charlotte couldn’t see a thing being afraid to run over either a deer or another undead, “and I’m busy with you already. Anyway, I am hungry.” She hadn’t touched the food in the aeroplane, too busy to catch up with sleep she had been missing. 

“I am hungry too,” Dracula only said, “do you hear me complain?” He had become monosyllabic since they had left her flat and Charlotte had not put much enthusiasm into changing that. So they had spent the flight staring and brooding at each other. 

Hitting the breaks by a crossroad, Charlotte believed to see the beginning of a village in the distance, “I am sure they have a raw steak for you.” She made the car take the left street, without awaiting any comment from Dracula. By now she just wanted to get it over with whatever would expect them at his old home. 

He had insisted they get here, and as the old Count in her vision had told her that his undead life had started it, it was logical to assume something had to end here. 

The village they came to wasn’t big, a few houses scattered in an undulating area. A single wooden shield announcing a small hotel with a restaurant. It wasn’t the most inviting, but by now Charlotte had stopped wondering about all the cliches that came with this journey. Her hunger was too huge to worry. 

“The sun is going down,” Dracula remarked then out of the blue.

“As if this matters,” was her answer. “For some reason, the absence of the sun is something that comes with your presence. And it feels like ages I’ve seen or felt her.” 

“It might not matter to you,” Dracula peered out of the car. “But to the undead it does.” He then loosened his seatbelt and opened the door to get out. 

Charlotte did the same, looking at him over the roof of the car, “I thought it doesn’t matter to you anymore. That it is just an old habit, you can’t break with yet.”

Dracula looked around, seeing some outlines in the distance, pointing at it, “I wasn’t talking about me, Charlotte.”

“What?” she turned on the spot, feeling colder as before then. “What!”

Ignoring her, he stepped forward, about to vanish in the growing dark, “You said you are hungry, so come on.”

Charlotte pulled the zipper of her jacket up and followed quickly.

Entering the place, they noted it was more of the village bar, and five typical worker faces turned toward them looking at the strangers in mild interest. Charlotte swallowed hard, looking around unsure what would happen next. The room had a low ceiling and Dracula had to bow a little, which didn’t detract from his appearance. Smog from cigarettes was circling to the dark wooden ceiling. She almost expected candles everywhere, but it was just the 21st-century equivalent; energy saving bulbs giving the room a low light mood. 

“If they have lava-lamps, we are leaving,” she joked and made a step forward. Her eyes glanced out of the small window finding all kinds of strange decoration on the deep window sills. Garlic tugged together in chains. Not one, not two, but dozens — everywhere. She put one and one together glancing at Dracula, “Maybe we should leave again.”

Dracula reached out, stopping her from leaving, “We stay.” 

He then went and said something in Romanian to the man behind the bar, before shoving Charlotte toward a table in the corner. For a moment, the owner exchanged glances with his friends but then decided it was best to go to work and went to shout something into the small kitchen run by a woman.

“I’ve ordered the daily special.”

“That is?” she eyed the garlic hanging beside her.

“I don’t know.” He settled beside her, unmoved by the herb. 

For a second Charlotte considered sitting silent aside him waiting for the food, but then her curiosity got the better of her. She grabbed one of the garlic, “Don’t the books say, vampires hate garlic?”

Dracula reached for the garlic and placed it back on the sill, “We are.”

“But…,” she looked at him puzzled, waiting for some allergic reaction, “What does it do to you?”

A faint smile played over his lips, “Bad breath.”

“Oh.” Her fingers began to push a coaster back and forth. “Have you been here before?”

Dracula who had browsed through an old book he had found on the sill beside the garlic, kept browsing while glancing up for a brief moment, “I am not Gordon Ramsay.”

Charlotte gave up on the conversation, “fine.”

“I’ve been actually,” Dracula placed the book on the bench they were sitting beside each other. 

Charlotte turned to look down, watching his sharp fingernails rest on the book. A copy of the Bible. 

“Young, a female, maybe your age, can’t be sure,” he let his gaze travel through the room, watching the men at the bar mutter with each other. “Must be 200 something years.” He turned back to Charlotte who looked at him in unease. 

“We already came to the conclusion of you being a monster,” she reached for her phone to check the time. “No, need to brag about.” 

Her car was ruined. She had lost her job. All because of him. And for some unknown reason, she hadn’t been angry with him. Now she was sitting in a country she didn’t understand a word they were speaking, 2000 kilometres away from home. Because of him, because of a supernatural bond she never had agreed to. It had been stupid and dangerous to invite him into her home, and it had been ridiculous to believe he would keep to his promise of not harming her. Because harm was already done in some way or another. All the pictures in her head — finding a shrink who would help her erase it would cost her a fortune. Let alone find someone who would be able to void the bond between them seemed impossible for the moment. 

Charlotte wasn’t even sure why they had to go to his castle. Still, he had insisted, and she had agreed because she couldn’t see herself living with a vampire for the rest of her life — turning out certainly very short. It had been a magic trick three days ago, in her opinion it only needed another magic trick to free them both. 

A young woman appeared then, bringing a plate with the food Dracula had ordered for Charlotte. The girl seemed at the edge of twenty. Her cheeks were red, either from work in the kitchen or because she was blushing. Charlotte couldn’t tell, but seeing her give Dracula a shy smile and him giving her one of his flirtatious smiles, she guessed the girl was a bit taken by his attention. 

“Stop flirting!” she hissed under her breath, thanking the girl for the food, who vanished then quickly. 

“I am not flirting,” Dracula leaned a bit to the side, watching the woman walz away back to the kitchen.

Looking dead serious at him, she sensed what was going on inside of him, “I know.”

Stunned, he turned back to her, cocking an eyebrow first at her than the food, “Sarmale.”

“Excuse me?”

“The food,” he pointed at the steaming plate, “Sarmale is traditional here. Cabbage rolls, filled with meat and rice.”

Without commenting on it further, Charlotte went to eat her dinner, having not had anything to eat since the morning. At some point, she felt the need to pick up on their conversation, “Did you ever care?”

“Care?” he couldn’t follow.

“About the people you…,” she tried to find a better word or description but decided it didn’t matter and would have been only for her inwit, not his, “killed.”

Dracula glanced at the half-eaten cabbage roll, obviously wondering if they had something to do with Charlotte’s sudden moral interest. “What kind of conversation is that? I think you know the answer to that question.”

Either she let go of it or would go all in, and Charlotte had decided she did not want to be the mute extra in this farce, so she proceeded, “Have you ever cared about someone?”

Huffing, he grabbed the Bible that was still lying between them only to place it with a bit of force to the other side, “Cared? What kind of word is that even?”

She couldn’t help but chuckle stunned, “Care. Looking after someone or something. Feel concerned.”

“Have you had the Oxford dictionary for breakfast, Charlotte?”

Ignoring his comment, she waited till she had gulped down a piece of meat, “You don’t know right? Care. Like, spending time with someone, treating someone for coffee. Or… letting a friend crash on your sofa when in need.”

If she did it on purpose or not, he couldn’t tell, “Giving someone a ride home? Something like that?”

Realising what she had done, she blushed, losing a bit of confidence, “Well.. whatever. I think you are getting my drift! Have you ever?”

Looking with a blank expression at her, his head began to shake, “No.”

“Not even as a child?”

He didn’t need to think about it, “No.”

Fork and knife got dropped gently aside the plate by Charlotte, processing his short answer, “I don’t understand.”

Seeing Charlotte was mainly done with her dinner, he shoved the plate away and leaned over. His face only an inch apart from her, “I am coming from a heritage, known for brutal wars. You think my ancestors could have formed what you see today when they would have cared?” The sudden breach of her personal space let Charlotte only stutter a few useless syllables. “And when we are at it, what do you care? Friends? You don’t have any!”

Dracula was changing the topic so quickly, Charlotte couldn’t comprehend his intentions, “What? That’s… that’s not true.”

Having leaned back, he began to chuckle, “You’ve seen it all? I’ve seen it all too, Charlotte. No frames, no pictures in your home. No social media. Nothing. You don’t even text. Only an Email. Why is that?”

“Congratulations,” she frowned angrily at him, “for channelling your inner Sherlock Holmes, but I think this is not about me.”

“Oh,” he interrupted, “I think it is! You talk about care? What happened, you have no friends, no family? Your family is probably dead, but friends?”

“Fuck you!” it slipped her. Immediately becoming aware she had betrayed herself to him. 

“It’s not because you are a person nobody likes,” he watched her face, reading in it, “it’s because you don’t want to have friends. You keep them at bay, don’t you?”

“I am not going to answer the question, Drac,” she reached for the glass of water that had come with the food.

“You are protecting yourself.”

“How would that even work?”

“Do you still wonder why we are bound together?” Dracula huffed, placing some money onto the table, “I can’t care. And you don’t want to. That’s why.”

Charlotte watched him stand up and crease out the wrinkles of his shirt and jacket while keeping seated. “I think you are wrong.”

He searched for a witty answer, not finding one, “No, I am not.”

“You could be so much more!” It escaped Charlotte a bit more enthusiastically as planned.

“Is this a pep-talk, Charlotte?” he teased. “I am over 500 years old, I’ve seen things you can’t even imagine. I’ve seen smart-ass people like you come and go and turn into dust. I could be so much more? You have absolutely no idea what this is, don’t you? I am a being your human scientists can’t explain. Probably never will. People raise from their graves, Charlotte, it’s a fact you all try to ignore for ages. But why? We, I exist for a reason. To be better? I drink blood, I kill people, I can never be better than feeding off people’s lives.”

“I…” her arguments brushed away by his speech and presence, she lowered her head.

“It’s about time to get this bond between us destroyed,” was the last he said before telling her, to, “let’s go.”

Unsure what he meant with the word “destroyed”, as she thought it wasn’t that easy, she rose then. A last question urging inside her to the surface, “Did you care about Agatha?” her hand felt out the cross under her shirt. 

The question made Dracula stay still for a second. His hand once more tugged at his jacket then, “I … I cared about Agatha as much as about anyone else.”

There was a twitch in his eyes, which told her something about him and Agatha’s relationship. “It’s her you choose as your ghost, I thought there is more to it.”

Half turned he stopped, biting his lower lip from the inside, “Agatha van Helsing had one advantage, she was clever,” he shrugged. “I like clever people. They are so fun to play with.”

The woman appeared again, taking the plate away, and Charlotte once more witnessed Dracula exchange glances with her. She was just glad they would leave this place now. 

“Ready?” Charlotte looked to the landlord, gave him a nod and then motioned toward Dracula, who later joined her by the exit. 

“Go, start the engine, Charlotte,” he placed his hand briefly on her shoulder. “I’ll use the restroom and join you in a moment.”

A little sleep-deprived, she nodded and stepped outside. It had gone dark, and the fog was slowly easing away. The air was chilly, and Charlotte shuttered unwillingly. In the distance, she could hear a howling and closer an owl. She turned for a moment reading the sign beside the door, ‘2016 tourist hotspot’ it read and made her shake her head. 

“‘Haunted house hotspot’ would clearly fit… restroom?” she turned on her heels, cursing her stupidity. At the same moment, a horrendous scream echoed through the night. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't believe this is over 20k words.

Bursting through the entrance door, Charlotte needed only one look to grasp that the scream had come out of the kitchen. While the men had broken out in scared and panicked chatter in front of the room, Charlotte pushed them aside to get into the kitchen. 

The door ajar, it was easy for her to push it open. Finding Dracula holding the young woman in a tight grip, his fangs already penetrating the skin. “No!”

Her noisy entrance made him back away, hissing in protest. 

The small amount of blood around his mouth told Charlotte the girl would get away with not more as a fright. Without delay, she jumped forward, throwing herself into him. The quick action made him let go of the woman, who quickly hurried away under tears. 

With force, Charlotte collided with Dracula making him tumble back, and they both fell against the wall. All the while, the Count growled in protest. Visibly angry he didn’t hold back with his powers. There was no way she could defend herself, he was way too powerful and blinded by his state. Standing up, he reached for Charlotte only to throw her to the other side of the room. With clattering noises, her body collided with the doorframe, a loud bang erupting when her head hit with the wood, knocking her out. 

The Count towered over her, tilting his head while watching Charlotte’s body glide down to the floor. There was still a heartbeat, and for a moment he considered to feat on her right away, but the turmoil from the other room let him reconsider. 

It was time to get this adventure to an end. Bowing, he reached under Charlotte to get her into his arms. He had sensed before that they were rather close to his castle. Under the screen of the night, he’d be safe — not that anyone would try to fight him. Dracula had been away for over a century. Still, having heard the old woman in the recording before and having seen the fearful glances of the men outside, he knew his legacy was still influential. He once had reigned over Transilvania — he would do again. 

When Charlotte woke again, her head felt as if someone was hitting her consistently against a wall. She groaned, letting her fingers roam through her hair, checking for injuries. There was just a nasty bump, and she let go of her head, examining her throat — by now a natural habit. 

“Don’t you worry,” a voice told her, “yet.”

Finding herself laying in front of a fire on a blanket, she glanced around, seeing Dracula sitting in a chair by a long table. Legs crossed, a book in his lap and an empty glass with the fitting carafe standing on the table — also abandoned. His hair had gotten greyer. 

Charlotte let her eyes wander through the room. It was clean, lit by some dim electrical lights at the walls, imitating candles and torches. The fire was real though, but behind a glass barrier, she only noticed now. Carpets and flags hanging on the wall. The place looked oddly familiar. 

Dracula read her thoughts, “Can you imagine? They made a sort of museum out of my old home. They pepped it up a bit, with a bit of modern — I like it.”

With a groan she confirmed his deliberations, remembering the place from her vision. Slowly she came up, reaching out for the table to steady her, before letting herself slip into one of the chairs, a look wandering to the empty drinking vessel. “Can I ask a question?”

Flipping to another page of his book, he motioned toward Charlotte with one hand to go on, without even looking up. 

It was a show, a trick, she was aware, “You don’t see Agatha anymore, do you?” Seeing a smug smirk appear on his lips, she continued, “you haven’t mentioned her for quite a while. Do I have to be worried about her?”

It wasn’t as he hadn’t noticed. He closed the book slowly and placed it onto the table, slowly raising then. “And we both know what that means, don’t we?” One hand trailed over the glass of the carafe. 

“Can I ask another question?”

“Would that make you happy?”

She chuckled, “Be aware of how you phrase your questions, Drac, it could indicate you care about me being happy.”

“We both know, you’ll be dead in an hour,” he shrugged walking up to her. “Unhappiness can spoil the taste.”

Charlotte placed her hands onto the table, feeling out the wooden material. She was sure it was the same table she had seen in her vision, making it an ancient antique piece. Closing her eyes, her fingertips trailed over some scratches and some natural rills. There it was, a soft vibration, so gentle she wouldn’t have noticed usually. Given the circumstances and her connection with Dracula, Charlotte had assumed for a while now that at some point it was enough to stand beside each other to transfer a bit of his supernatural talent. 

Opening her eyes, she looked up to him, “You are dying.”

Taken back a bit, he answered angrily, “That’s not a question.”

“No,” she let herself slip to the ground, placing both hands onto the marble floor. The vibration was there a little stronger. All under Dracula’s curious looks. She reached for his hand, tugging at it. To their surprise, the Count bent and joined her on the ground. 

“Here.” She pressed his hand onto the ground, covering it with her own. 

Feeling what Charlotte had felt before only a little, now amplified through his powers, made him jolt up his head staring at her. 

“Let me be one of those smart-ass people, who will turn to dust at some point,” Charlotte tightened her grip around his hand, “You are dying, hence the grey hair, besides drinking blood from the bags. You have visions, the souls you’ve killed.”

“That was in London.”

“You try to ignore it, don’t you? You think, killing me, will bring you back to old strength,” she now held his hand with both her hands. Dracula struggled to get away but knew it was too late anyway. “Those vibrations are the ripples of time. The ones you left in the past 500 years, and now, they are coming for you. They don’t care about countries or distances. They don’t care about anything, Drac. Sound familiar?”

He pushed her away, jumping back up, “I’ll reign over this area once again, living further as anyone else!”

Sitting on her bottom now, she shook her head, “You are dying, Drac. You postponed your death for 500 years, but now … no one can run forever. They are coming!”

With a swift motion, Dracula swept Charlotte of the floor and pressed her against the next wall, her feet hanging in the air, “Let them come!”

“Don’t be daft!” she tried to struggle herself free, without making him move an inch. “The decision is made. By you.”

“Decisions can be changed,” red seeped into the white of his eyes. “It’s time to reign again!”

Grabbing her then, he carried her in a tight grip up the many stairs. Deep into the mace, his castle was. Charlotte had become an annoyance. It was time to bring this farce, how she had called all this, to an end. And he knew what place was best for it. 

Reaching the tower, Dracula pushed Charlotte forward, closing the door behind him. Only now Charlotte was aware of how long she must have been unconscious. In the distance, by the hills, she could see the dawn coming. 

“Of course,” she glanced over the ridge, hearing the river in the darkness. 

“Of course what?”

She turned, “It did start here, didn’t it? Back then, all those years ago, when you were still human.”

“Charlotte. Charlotte, Charlotte!” he paced forward, grabbing her by the arms. “Spare me your talking, spare me your weak narratives.” His fangs shined viciously. 

As he wished, and as she had no more clever words in store, Charlotte kept silent, only looking at him. At the monster and the man behind it. Maybe she was lucky enough to die right away. 

He could hear the blood rush through her veins, her heart pumping it with 160 beats per minute through her body. Every inch of her anticipating his deadly bite. She would taste after adrenalin and a bit of fear, he guessed. He’d drink her empty within minutes, not leaving one drop inside of her — nothing wasted. And when she’d come back, he put her in one of his boxes, and keep her as a pet, feeding her with rats and babies maybe. Or he would stake her right away, before listening to her whining for the next 200 years. 

Yes, he was sure her blood would revive him, would erase the mistake he had made by drinking Agatha’s blood. 

A minute had passed by already, and Charlotte was sure her stomach would revolt soon due to the anticipation and fear of death. Why was he taking so much time? Why was he just holding her in his merciless grip, without making a move, staring down at her? 

In the distance, she heard a howling, a group of wolves. She also listened to another sound, the sound of moaning and clatter. The Undead were coming. 

It needed only one more motion, one more to have access to that delicious blood of Charlotte. Reign again.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End is coming. Amends have to be made.

“You can’t, can you?” 

Hearing the voice behind him, he let a breath he was holding — only by force of habit — exhale. Closing his eyelids, his grip loosened slightly, “Agatha.”

Hearing that name Charlotte also let a held breath escape. 

“You’ve tried, so hard,” Agatha went on. “But after 500 years of being a monster, you’ve become something else again.” It was an internal dialogue Charlotte watched and only could hope his good consciousness would win. “You’ve become the man you once were again.”

Dracula let go of Charlotte, who leaned against one of the increases of the tower, catching her breath, “This is too much.”

The sun was almost touching the top of the mountains, bathing the sky in a beautiful tone of reds, yellows and oranges. Charlotte watched Dracula admire it for a moment before he turned back to her then. 

“You’ve been right. All those centuries ago. I let so many battles always have expected to die in one of them, till I became aware I didn’t want to die. Not in a battle, not another way. Funnily enough, I became so afraid of dying that I felt ashamed. And shame was a big thing back then. So, in a moment of vulnerability, I came up here and tried to kill myself.” He turned back at the sunrise. “An ignoble death.”

“But you were still so afraid to die that you didn’t,” Charlotte concluded, remembering how he had turned into a vampire that evening. “You defeated death.” It sounded a bit too passionate for her sense. 

“Have I?” he marvelled more to himself. “While I lived, others died because of me.” 

He had lost count long ago about his victims. He couldn’t even remember them. Some had been outstanding, having left a little impression on him, but most were forgotten to history and his memory. 

“I drank poisoned blood, Charlotte, that’s why I am dying,” he explained then to her, turning back to Agatha who still only he could see. “I had finally decided to die.”

“But with your death, something else came along,” Agatha smirked, walking up to the ridge to look over it. The undead had reached the inside of the castle by now. Soon they would arrive at the tower. “Amends have to be made.”

“Amends,” Dracula only repeated. 

“Amends?” Charlotte felt the vibrations and heard the grunts coming closer. She paced around the small area of the tower, not able to see what he saw. 

He walked over and sat onto the ridge, watching the dawn for a moment, “I’ve been a naughty boy, Charlotte. I am sure you know that by now. Amends _have_ to be made.”

“W-What kind of amends?” Charlotte had seen enough dramatic movies to know what would await Dracula. The past three days had been an excellent example of what was possible. Every action leading to a reaction. Every step coming with a toll. 

“Not want to sound too pessimistic, but,” his hands formed an empty bowl, “they’ll tear me apart, I assume.”

Charlotte thought about it, terrified of the pictures that came along with it, “That will hurt?” 

There was a certain naivety that came with her, he almost adored. “It will hurt immensely,” he chuckled. “But that’s not it.”

“That’s not it? What else can you do, like tearing someone apart?”

“The vampire dies, Charlotte, but not the soul. It can be assumed I’ll scream in agony for eternity.” 

Something began banging against the door. At first, Charlotte jumped back a bit only to decide someone had to stop this nonsense, leaning against it with her back, “Those are some bullshit amends!”

Dracula knew they not only would come through the door, but also were about to crawl up the walls to the tower. 

“That’s how it goes. I’ve to pay back what I have taken, and I’ve taken a lot.”

Charlotte had found a log beside the door, pushing it into the fixations beside the door. Then she did what she always did when thinking; walking in circles, “Are you telling me, I’ve gone through all this only to … to watch you get killed by a horde of zombies?” 

Dracula walked up to her, stopping her in the middle of the area, by reaching out to her. He guessed it would only be minutes left. “Charlotte.”

“I am not letting this happen!” she shouted. “There has to be something we can do about it. A magic trick. Another oath… I don’t know.” Why was she doing this? 

He saw the incomprehension mirroring in her eyes. Thrown into an adventure by unknown circumstances, Dracula knew she had to deal with so much the past days. Too much for a human of her status. An ordinary woman having to rise to exceptional behaviour in a short time. Charlotte could do that, but not without paying the price regarding her mental health. Why it had to be her, he hadn’t figured yet. Surely there was a reason, but he couldn’t figure it out. 

Touching her by the cheek, in need to calm her down a little, he said; “I am sorry.”

Charlotte began shaking her head. Unable to listen, caught in her own carousel of thoughts, she fought off his touch, “You were wrong, you know! I mean, you weren’t right either, but… I indeed don’t want to care, because people only hurt you or leave you or both!” The banging at the door got louder, and the wood began to give in. “And I might sound ridiculous, but I _do_ care about you!”

“Why? What for?” The first rotten hands appeared at the ridge. “I’ve tried to kill you several times. And you saw what I did to everyone who met me or even trusted me. I can’t be trusted. I can’t be seen as a friend. I’ve hurt you.”

He turned slightly, seeing Agatha grimacing at the rotten corpses that climbed over the facade. Hell wouldn’t be everything but be pleasant. They would rip him slowly apart, inch by inch, muscle by muscle and regret by regret. They would do what was necessary to lead them to their closure. Maybe that was what was required to conduct their souls to rest. Dracula couldn’t tell. There were myths and legends and rules he never had questioned. It was too late to start with it now. 

Glancing at his hands, he saw them slightly shaking. So, this is how fear feels, he thought. A human emotion he had left behind so long ago. What wasn’t even real, as the fear it had been that had kept him alive. The sun was now beginning to bathe the tower in sunlight. He stepped forward, looking at it. “It’s been so long.”

Watching him slowly zoom out, she reached out, grabbing his arm, “Because you promised!”

Absorbed by the sunrise, he had forgotten about her for the moment, “What?”

“I did ask you if I’ll regret this,” she waited till he raised his eyebrows, remembering it, “and you promised I wouldn’t.” Charlotte urged him closer tugging at him, only to grab his wrists. The gesture strengthened the connection between them. The gruesome sounds around her became visible. Noticing how close the ghosts of the past were already a huff escaped her. Time was running out and couldn’t be wasted with distracting fear. Charlotte ignored it all concentrating on him, and nothing more. “You promised, and I’ve never heard of vampires giving promises. That’s why.” Then the door burst apart.

They both startled, looking at the shattered entrance and the half-rotted bodies now coming through it. They were fixed on Dracula. Boney arms and hands, reaching out and grunts becoming more intense by catching sight of the one person to they owned their restlessness. 

Unconsciously Dracula and Charlotte stepped closer, holding now tight to each other.

He licked his lips nervously, feeling he had to reassure Charlotte of her safety. “They are not coming for you.”

“I know.”

“May I interrupt?” Agatha stepped backwards, feeling intimidated by the walking corpses. 

Finally, able to see Agatha, Charlotte stared at her with an open mouth. For a brief second, she let go of Dracula’s wrists. The images of the undead and Agatha vanished. Quickly she grabbed his hands again.

“Agatha?” The thought that she would be there calmed Dracula a little.

Already vanishing in the mass of zombies, she yelled over the noise, “What did you just say?” the undead just walked through her.

Dracula felt the first hands and fingers tug at his clothes, “I asked her why.”

Charlotte understood faster as he did. Turning with him away from the threat, only to end up against another decomposed body that was staring at them with no more flesh revealing a bare skull. “No! Before, when you stopped me from pacing.”

“I said; I am sorry!” There was a meaning behind everything. Where there was a toll, there was a way to pay it off, there were several ways. 

The longing for him became so strong, he wouldn’t be able to hold onto Charlotte soon. They were slowly dragging him away from her. Desperately they both tried to keep the contact. 

“Are you?” she reached for the lapels of his jacket, the noises of grunting and moaning now so loud she almost couldn’t understand her own words nor his answer.

“What does it matter?” he grabbed her arms. Time was up, and he knew it was best to consider the right words for this limited amount of time. “Listen, Charlotte; it’s okay, I deserve this! I’ve done wrong for so long. You hear me! I have to let this happen. Just for once, I need to do the right thing.”

“No!” she shook her head viciously, not willing to accept Dracula’s amends. 

“Charlie.“

Hearing him call her that she looked at him blankly. Then he slowly let go of her. The gesture was natural, it was what had to happen, but Charlotte wasn’t willing to do the same. “Don’t.”

“It’s time to let go, Charlie,” he was dragged to the edge of the tower by now, and only one hand was still held by Charlotte. 

The sound of her begging not to let go and the sound of moaning had become a cacophony. So loud it was unbearable, getting louder and louder till Charlotte heard a high pitched tone in her ears. Her fingers slipped out of Dracula’s hand. The contact broken, everything vanished. Agatha. The Undead. Dracula. The noise. Gone. 

The morning was breaking. Birds were chirping in the distance. The shadows were vanishing, and the sunlight was touching Charlotte’s back with warmth. Still standing with stretched out hands, mouth half-open, she became slowly aware that Dracula was gone. And she was left behind alone. 

She made a step forward, into the direction Dracula had vanished, her hands trying to find something but there was nothing. Just air. In light shock, Charlotte turned on the spot several times. There had to be something, a hint or a trace. Hectically she paced to the ledge, peering down seeing nothing but stone and the river and the forest. It was the same on the other side, and the same when she paced to the door, looking down the endless corridor of stairs. There was no one. Only the broken door was telling the tale of what had happened only minutes ago. 

“No,” she was becoming sick and needed to bend over. Her blood pressure was about to collapse. “No!” She fell on her knees. 

Hitting the concrete under her with her flat hands, she let her tears run free, whaling in agony about the lost friend. 

And after long minutes of crying and cursing, of questioning what had happened, she realised nothing would happen anymore. Count Dracula wouldn’t come back. She either pull herself back together or wait till a tourist group would find her. Exhausted Charlotte pulled herself up and began to descend the stairs down to the dining room. It seemed an endless walk.

Feeling thirsty, she began to look for water but only found the empty carafe. The sight made her so angry that she used her hand to hit the glass down on the floor where it shattered. To top it all, the wound by her finger had opened up again, spilling now blood like mad. 

“For God sake!” she looked at the wound, watching the trickle of blood cover her hand. Annoyed, she shook her hand down to the ground, to get rid of the blood while looking for a handkerchief in her pocket. The drops of blood ended all over the floor and near the engraved ‘code of arms’ beside the fireplace. 

She wrapped an old handkerchief around her finger and pressed down to stop the bleeding. 

Slowly she became aware that she was lost. Mentally, but also physically. What was she supposed to do now? At the end of her known world. She couldn’t speak the language, she had no money. They didn’t even buy return tickets!

Realising how screwed she was, Charlotte sunk on the chair, staring at the flag across the wall for solid five minutes. Her brain had shut down. Then she slowly sunk forward, letting her head rest in the arms she had placed on the table. 

She’d figure something out, but just not yet. Not when she was so tired and exhausted. There was another time to face reality. In an instant, she fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are NOT finished yet!


	12. Final Chapter and Afterword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last Chapter and Afterword. Hope you have fun reading this last bit.

How long she slept, she couldn’t tell. When something gently touched her by her shoulder, it could be minutes or even hours. Deep inside of her, it only felt like seconds at most. Rubbing her face against her arms, she guessed someone who looked after the castle must have found her. 

Great, she thought, I hope they’ll speak a little English. “Listen, you might wonder how —” facing the familiar smile of Dracula robbed her of every clear thought she was having. Jumping up, she reached forward, “Drac!” grabbing his forearms. 

A happy laugh escaped her and also him. To make sure he was real, her hands reached up to his chest and then his face.

Amused about her reaction, he reached for her hands, “Stop it!” 

“How? I thought I’ve lost you!” once again, she grabbed him by the arms, laughing in joy. 

“Yes,” was all he said, but with a smile. His looks roaming over her face, taking in her happiness. “Yes.”

“God, I am glad you got away!” she began rubbing her hands together. “Because I have no clue how to get home again.” 

“Yes.”

His terse answers made her look up, reading in his face. His hair was black again, the grey gone, and his eyes seemed so much younger as before, but there was something else. A sadness, buried in those little wrinkles around his eyes. Then Charlotte became aware of her fingers, and that the handkerchief she had bound around it was gone. As the cut too. 

Glancing at her hands, she understood, “This isn’t real.”

Dracula reached out for her hand, “No,” he gave it a soft squeeze, “it’s just a memory I’ve left you. An echo of what could have been.”

“So, you won’t come back.”

Dracula looked around his old home, tensing a little, “I am gone. Dead. Torn to pieces.”

“And… and your soul?” she asked then, feeling emotions rise from her belly once again. 

Biting his lower lip, he walked over to the tiles in the ground holding his Coats of Arms. The tip of his foot trailing over it. “My name was Vlad Dracul, Vlad the Impaler, better known as Count Dracula,” he turned back to her, giving her a gentle smile, “and then I met you, calling me Drac. And I always wondered why.”

She pressed down the emotions and gave him a forced smirk, aware he didn’t answer her question, “Because it sounds silly, that’s why.”

“Because friends call friends, silly names,” he motioned toward her. “And I found ‘Charlie’ silly from the start.”

They both laughed about it. 

“Yet, you left me,” she turned over to the fire, holding out her hands. 

“There weren’t many choices left, Charlie,” he began warming his hands asides hers. “It was either killing you and reviving myself or … making amends. Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose.”

“Why? Why choose me over the possibility to spend eternity in agony?” she shifted on

the spot. “You’ve killed so many. I am glad you didn’t kill me, but…”

“Don’t you see? No one ever believed in me! Not even Agatha. I was always the threat, the monster and they all did well to see me this way,” one hand of his reached for his chest, there where his heart should beat underneath, wondering how it must feel like, “and then you came along. Binding us together in an act of kindness. You never saw me as the monster I was, but as the man, I used to be. You saw me as the one version I never could see myself. 

Making amends didn’t mean to just die at the end. It meant to be sorry. It intended to let go of the past and try to be this version you saw in me. Because of you, I understood that to care is not a disadvantage.”

Charlotte felt not only embarrassed by his words that gave her so much attention but also uncomfortable. Was her part in this story necessary? “You could have figured this out yourself.”

“Everyone needs a mirror, Charlie. A mirror always tells the truth. It reflects and reminds us of our duty, our desires and our guilt,” he walked over the table, where a silver plate laid, filled with fake fruits. Taking it up, he looked at the slightly distorted reflection. It was not the rotten person he had observed for so long, but a younger one. With a gentle expression of contentedness. “You’ve been my mirror.”

When he saw her sniff and bruhs away a tear, he placed the plate away and grabbed her by the shoulder, “I left you, and you’ll naturally feel hurt, but grasp that you did so much for me. I owe you.”

Laughing, she shook her head, “You’re dead. Gone. You might owe me — I don’t think you do — how could you do anything for me now?”

“Write it down. Everything. Give this legend a suiting end,” he shifted then, feeling it was time to leave again. “You’ll be fine. There are measures been taken.” 

“From where?” she asked sarcastically. “From the afterlife?”

“You know, Charlie, the great thing about legends is, you never can explain it all. There is always something, no matter how deep you dig, how long you think about it, you never find a suitable answer. It’s the same here.” 

Words of wisdom, so she nodded. “I am going to miss you.”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he let a smile on his lips slowly grow, till she could see his teeth. Then he winked at her, “I am going to miss you too.”

The vibration of a phone startled Charlotte awake. Disorientated, she reached for the source finding a phone that didn’t belong to her besides her. She identified it as Dracula’s. 

She pressed the green button, “Yes?”

“Is this Miss Charlotte speaking? My name is Renfield, there will be a car waiting outside for you.”

“A car?” Charlotte was a bit unsure what to think of the man. “I have a car.”

“You’ll be taken back to the airport in Bucharest. I’ve your tickets here and going to send them over in a minute,” Renfield kept explaining. 

Charlotte kept silent for a bit, as Renfield did too. Then she decided to just play along, it was probably the only chance to get home again. “How do you know all this?”

There was a short pause, “I just know. Why?”

“Uhm, nothing, I’m going for the car then,” Charlotte stood up and gave the room one last look. It was time to go home.

“I am awaiting you in Heathrow then, goodbye.” The call ended before Charlotte could ask for any further information. 

“Odd,” she reached the outside, finding a car not far away from the entrance. A man standing beside waiting for her. When he recognised her, he went to open the backside door. “That’s even odder.”

There were not many choices, so Charlotte decided to trust the caller and the driver to get her to the airport and back home. About to walk up to the car, she heard then a noise behind her. In a bush, something was moving and whimpering. 

Slowly she approached the bush expecting to be a wounded bird or a fox. Only to find a little puppy staring at her. Bowing down, she wondered to whom it belonged. It looked healthy and fit, the fur black as the night, only the ears — not yet full pendant — where white. 

“Hey!” she carefully reached out, still looking out for the mother dog. “Where do you come from?”

The dog wheezed and then stumbled forward, licking over her hand, conquering Charlotte’s heart in an instant. Clearly, there was no owner or mother dog around. Because Charlotte’s gut feeling was telling her that she couldn’t leave the puppy behind, she decided on a whim to adopt a dog. “I am going to regret this, but ... I’ve heard they are not very kind to stray dogs here.”

Renfield showed up at the airport as promised, but the dog had to go into quarantine. Taking care of it, Renfield didn’t ask any questions, and Charlotte decided, she wouldn’t ask either. It was what Dracula had told her about — she was taken care off, no matter what. 

On the drive back home to her apartment, Renfield told her about a significant amount of money that had been stored in her name. She was free to do with it whatever she wanted. Charlotte took the information without any outer reaction, only asking about how much money he was talking. Renfield also answered without any emotion that she was now obscenely rich. It sounded familiar. 

Two weeks later, the bell of her apartment rang, and Charlotte found Renfield in front of it. The guy crept her out, and she guessed he stood under a particular influence. Though he seemed faithful to her and in a moment of courage, Charlotte had asked if he had known a man called Dracula. That’s how she found out under whos influence he stood but decided it was not her to determine. Renfield was just odd and didn’t bite. 

“I’ve brought you something,” Renfield announced with a crooked smile, raising an animal box with his left hand. Silent barking emerged. “The quarantine is over, the dog is chipped, vaccinated and has behaved oddly calm.”

Charlotte motioned him to put the box down in the living room, “Sounds great. Thank you, Renfield.” She went to free the dog from its cage. The pup had grown quite a bit, and he’s ears were now fully upright. A lively little fellow, happy to be around his new owner and Charlotte couldn’t help but smile having a new friend from no one. 

“I also took care about the money -- as you wished,” there was an undertone that he wasn’t exactly sympathetic with her actions. As he was the lawyer and she the obscenely wealthy person, “I transferred most of it to the ‘van Helsing Cancer Research Foundation’. They were overjoyed.” Renfield placed a stack of papers onto her desk. 

Charlotte nodded, taking the puppy into her arms, which greeted her by licking over her face. She giggled. “I am glad they were.”

Renfield came a little closer, eyeing the dog for a moment, “the rest of the money I transferred to a bank account in your name. The formalities and access, you’ll find in the papers,” he pointed at the table only to add quickly; “And I gave myself a payment.”

Lowering the puppy, she frowned, but thought it was okay, “in a reasonable amount, I hope.”

Blushing, he bowed, “I’d never dare to…”

“It’s okay, Renfield,” the puppy in her arms began to squeal, “I think he wants water. Would you mind?” without waiting, she pressed the dog into Renfield’s hands and went to the kitchen.

Holding the dog with both arms stretched away, Renfield eyed the dog for a while. The tale was swinging wildly, and the creature was barking in joy at him. 

When Charlotte came back, she watched the layer in amusement, placing the bowl down. Renfield lowered the dog with a smile on his face, watching the dog drink eagerly, “The Master seems thirsty!”

Charlotte brought her eyes from the dog to him, “Master?”

Renfield shuffled on the spot nervously, “Yes… I… I thought it’s his name, isn’t it?”

“No, I haven’t given him a name yet,” she eyed first him suspiciously, then the dog. Only to dismiss it then. “Renfield?”

“Yes?”

“Is there anything you can do for me or anything you need to do for me?” she asked.

He thought about it for a bit, “No. So far everything is settled. I’ve done everything you asked me for. Why?”

Charlotte exhaled relieved and then walked up to him. A little cumbersome she reached out to him, touching him by the hand, what ended up in shaking his hand, “You are free then. Go back to your old life, Renfield.”

It took him a moment to understand what she meant, “Oh-kay. You can call when there is something else.”

“I won’t,” she only smiled at him pushing him then to the door. “But Renfield?”

“Yes?”

She motioned to the dog, “You know any good names for a shepherd dog?” 

“A shepherd dog?” he looked at her puzzled.

“Yes,” now Charlotte was confused, pointing at the black ball of fur. “He’s a shepherd, don’t you think? At least part of it.”

It was the first time Renfield looked at her as if she was kind of dense, “No, I don’t think this is a shepherd,” the influence of Dracula was easing away. His mannerisms now imitated a normal human being and not a creep. 

“What do you think it is then?” a mild panic had slipped into Charlotte’s question. If this cutie pie would turn out to be a Great Dane she’d have a problem. 

Renfield glanced at the dog which had taken seat aside Charlotte, begging for her to take him into her arms. So she did, and Renfield leaned in a little closer, “My knowledge about are limited but, personally I think this is a Wolfdog. Don’t you think? Good day.”

The door went shut, and Charlotte stared at the door letting is opinion replay in her head. “A wolfdog?” She directed her eyes onto the dog.

Panting the animal let out his long tongue licking over Charlotte’s nose, only to bark softly at her then. Walking over to her table, she put him down gently. She reached for the snout, carefully tugging the flesh away, revealing pointy white teeth. She hummed thoughtfully. 

In the end, Renfield was a lawyer, not a veterinarian. With a shrug, she turned wanting to get the bowl to refill it for later. 

The claws of the dog scratched over the surface, and Charlotte chuckled, “Give me a moment.” And then a soft howl echoed through the room. 

Turning quickly, Charlotte saw the dog had thrown his head back, snout in the air, giving his first-ever howl. It was a bit untrained, but still.

Charlotte’s right hand ruffled her hair in wonder. 

Renfield had been right. 

_ This wasn’t a shepherd dog.  _

End.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it. My first Dracula fic and I hope some of you had some enjoyment reading it. I would love to know what you think, now it is complete.
> 
> Maybe with a second series, I write some other Drac-fics... but for now, I assume that's it and I retreat into my usual fandoms. Thanks for your attention!


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